I wonder if Mrs Dalloway was focused on Septimus alone, and his experience of the war, then It would be written more like Big Two-Hearted River. Hemingway is interested in what trauma does to a person, while Woolf explores how it affects a society. Both authors chose different narrative styles to show what impact memory of World War I had on populations returning.

We only hear one voice, Nick, in Hemingway’s short story, only whatever he does and sees. The readers perspective is limited by Nicks consciousness. Every action is explained in great detail, and every inaction is dragged out to a point of feeling tension and arrest the way Nick would. I think the point of this is to create empathy in the reader for someone they don’t know, and never will know. A whole population of young men came back from war with experiences no one else would, they struggled to have these emotions recognized and expressed. To Hemingway, he saw issues within the friends and family of soldiers, who did not know how to treat their loved ones. It was important to show the deep subtle impacts of trauma that might be looked over. The reader of Big Two-Hearted River can feel that there is something off about the seemingly normal situation of going fishing. The in depth narrative style puts emphasis on the personal struggles of memory.

In contrast, Virginia Woolf intends to examine how different members of society process the end of World War I. The reader does not just live in Septimus’s head, but floats through multiple perspectives. When Septimus takes his own life at the end, his doctor is perplexed and wonders why he would do it, while his wife understands his motives. Later some characters brush the incident off as ultimately an act of cowardice, but Clarissa is shaken by the tragedy. Woolf gives narration to multiple different characters unequally, it is clear which ideas she agrees with, but not without acknowledging the presence of contrasting beliefs. We know why Septimus killed himself, but did not feel the day to day build up and complicated memories associated with it, as Hemingway would have written. Instead, we look at societies perceptions of others coming back from the war, and why they were treated as they did.

Hemingway does not give more information that what is immediately present in a situation. He uses descriptions that add up to a conclusion. “He’s alright, Nick thought. He was only tired. He had wet his hand before he touched the trout, so he would not disturb the delicate mucus that covered him”(149). Nick is projecting his emotions onto the trout. He knows the animal is scared and hurting, but tells himself that it is only tired. Nick feels different and foreign, but could just be telling himself that it is nothing but fatigue. Without saying it, we can tell that Nick is referencing himself, because of the peculiar language used about a caught fish. Nick is not excited about capturing him, he does not want to slay the fish in a dominating way. He sees himself in the creature, that is why he takes care to wet his hand. These clues give the reader better insight than just saying that Nick is projecting, because they can recognize the behavior in their own life.