How we cite our quotes: (Part.Paragraph)
Quote #4
He could have made camp hours before if he had wanted to. There were plenty of good places to camp on the river. But this was good. (I.33)
“Good” is one of those words that your English teacher has probably called a dead word—i.e. it means nothing—that you should avoid. Well, Hemingway is not being a lazy writer here. “Good” in this case is supposed to evoke all of those bland ideas: satisfactory, decent, okay, it will do. Why would someone need to reassure themselves that their campsite was good? It would be one thing to say “It was the greatest campsite there ever was,” but why just mention that it’s good? And why mention it twice (in case you haven’t picked up on it, there are a fair number of repetitions like this one in this story)? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that things aren’t bad. But why would they be bad? He liked to open cans. (I.35) Don’t we all? No? Okay, we admit that this is a little weird. Opening a can is about as mechanical a gesture as there is. There’s not much that can go wrong opening a can—it’s literally in your hands—and it serves a definitive purpose (getting food). Actually, given what we know about Nick so far, a love of can-opening makes a lot of sense for this guy. It’s such a mundane thing to mention that it’s pretty much begging us to read into it.
Quote #5
His mind was starting to work. He knew he could choke it because he was tired enough. (I.37)
“Uh-oh, there goes my mind again. It tries to think sometimes. Just one second, I’ll stop it.” Usually thinking is not considered to be so bad a thing. Why is Nick so worried about his mind working? Is he afraid of thinking about something? Let’s take a look at the line that comes immediately before this one: “It made a good ending to the story.” Remember, he’s talking about his old friend Hopkins here. An ending to the story implies that there will be no more of Hopkins; basically, the implication is that Hopkins is dead. And it’s the reminder that Hopkins is dead (presumably in the war) that makes Nick want to turn off his mind before it starts to think about it.
Quote #6
Nick did not care about fishing that hole. He was sure he would get hooked in the branches. (II.48)
Remember, Nick is a control freak. But he can’t control everything. So instead, he avoids things that he can’t control, like this fishing hole. Think of the imagery of bushes and branches and lots of things to get caught in versus the imagery of Nick’s camp.