The Big Two-Hearted River

 The first similarity to WWI is the landscape. He arrives at a town that nothing is left of but the foundations, the blocks are chipped and everything is burnt. Much like the end of a war scene. The next thing that caught my attention was the grasshoppers. The first ones in the story are brown normal grasshoppers but colored black from the burnt of landscape. This is a metaphor for men who come back from war and the affects form the war stay with them. The man then hikes for many miles and sets up a crude camp much like you would on a scouting mission. The whole purpose of the trip is to catch a few fish which i think represent the enemy however it is much more peaceful considering he feels bad for the fish when he embeds a hook in ones mouth and it gets away. The man reminds me of a sniper waiting and only picking off the big fish not wasting his time on the smaller ones. However i also think that it can be taken a completely different way. Starting out in the war zone and then hiking away to get away form it and get back to the pleasures of life, fishing.

The Big Two-Hearted river could be an introduction for The Sun Also Rises because both allude to WWI without actually saying that that is what they are talking about. In both stories the author goes throughout the book hinting at the thought of WWI but never saying anything about it. If you were to read The Big Two-Hearted River before hand it may get you used to the idea and technique of picking out what the author is actually saying about the war.