Ernest Hemingway\'s Big Two Hearted River

Ernest Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River"

Focalization

Looking back on that occasion, he realized just how big of a trout he had almost caught. It had quite easily been the biggest one he had seen -- the biggest one he had ever heard of, in fact. He still recollected the trout's anger; there was nothing else it could do bet be irate at the solid way in which he had been hooked. Yet the trout had been fated to escape, for the simple fact its teeth eventually cut through the hook's snell, leaving the hook in its jaw.

Part of him recoiled at the sheer enormity of the trout's size. He had never heard of a trout so large before, let alone actually seen one. Nick knew that he had permanently disabled the fish because his hook had gone through its mouth so solidly. Soon enough, the fish would cut through part of the hook with its teeth, forever leaving it in his mouth. Nick was aware of the fish's anger, palpable even then, and silently wished he had not hooked it.

The excitement continued to well within him. That had to be one of the biggest trout in the river, bigger than anything anyone had ever seen, and Nick had hooked him quite solidly. He was too excited to pay much attention to the fish's anger, which was naturally attributed to its size and existence as a fish. Yet he was comforted by the fact that, despite his inability to reel it in, the fish would bear the mark of his hook, bitten through the snell by its teeth, on its face for some time to come.

A wry smile gently overtook his face. Of all the luck. There, before his eyes alone, was the biggest trout he had ever seen, probably the biggest one anybody had ever seen, and he was powerless to keep it. In just a short matter of time, the fish's teet would sever the hook from the line, leaving a permanent reminder of his experience with Nick in the form of the hook in its face. For all the fish's apparent anger, as things of that size were won't to express, there was no way Nick could tell anyone about it, and have them believe him.