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Jarlen Mejia Ventura

Professor Diehl

HUMN 2010

Throughout the stories of Nick Adam’s, he goes through a series of emotions in the

stories. One significant emotion he trails through is heartbrokenness, this leads him to do many

things, like drinking and being lost in his thoughts. The Heartbreak I am focusing on is the

heartbrokenness he goes through after his breakup with Marjorie. His relationship with Marjorie

was special, but that would soon change as Nick grew apart from Marjorie. In one of the

previous books, The End of Something, Nick, and Marjorie are fishing together, and by the end

of the trip, Nick told Marjorie he was not satisfied with their relationship. It seemed like Nick

was already checked out of the relationship in his head. In the text as throughout the fishing trip

he responded to Marjorie in a disinterested tone and would start arguments with Marjorie.

Although he broke up with her their relationship was previously growing, and they made

plans to eventually get married in the future, and for him to get a job so that he could stay close

with Marge. After the breakup he soon faces many trails of challenge as he is having trouble

even having a conversation with his friend Bill. I can infer this as in the text “The Three-Day

Blow” it states “It was the only thing to do. If you hadn’t, by now you’d be back home working

trying to get enough money to get married.” Nick said nothing.” (Hemingway 122). In the text

Bill is telling Nick he made a good choice leaving Marjorie as she would have complicated his

life, but Nick is not responding and left speechless. Nick is lost and does not know what to do

without Marjorie in his life. He no longer has goals that he needs to fulfill and a person to take

care of. In the text “The Three-Day Blow” it states “His original plan had been to go down home
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and get a job. Then he had planned to stay in Charlevoix all winter so he could be near Marge.

Now he did not know what he was going to do.” (123). This is a clear indication to how much

influence Marjorie had on Nick as he was too heartbroken to aim for more goals in life. With

Marjorie no longer being in his life it has left Nick with memories to remember and thoughts on

what life could have been like if they would have stayed together. In the text “The Three-Day

Blow” it states “He had talked to her about how they would go to Italy together and the fun they

would have. Places they would be together. It was all gone now” (123). In the text we can see

how Nick is reminiscing on the plans he had with Marjorie for their future. The sorrow affects

the breakup had on Nick clearly shows how depressed he is as he can’t stop thinking about

Marjorie which leaves him no room to think about what he wants to do with his future. The

heartbrokenness Nick had also caused him to also indulge in drinking. Nick and his friend Bill

would drink in the story. In the text “The Three-Day Blow” it states, “Let’s get drunk and go

swimming,” Nick said.” (123). From this we can see that Nick used drinking as an escape of the

heartbrokenness Marjorie caused him. Although Nick had his friend Bill by his side to drink and

distract him the breakup truly affected him. Ultimately the heartbrokenness from his breakup

with Marjorie left him with many sorrows affects that affected the direction he was taking in life
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Hemingway, Ernest. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Scribner, 1938.