Hemingway leads the reader to believe that him and his wife have separated because she nor Nick's son is on the camping trip. Various people throughout the stories have altered Nick's view but he still manages to learn for himself in the end. .
Nick's perspective of sanity changes not only by experiencing it first hand but also through the observing the treatment of the mentally ill. From the very beginning in "Indian Camp-, Nick is tested to see if he could handle real life. When Nick's father is delivering the baby the woman gives out a scream causing Nick to say, "Oh, Daddy, can't you give her something to make her stop screaming?- Through the whole operation Nick was looking away, not because he wasn't interested but because he was frightened. "His curiosity had been gone for a long time."" In "The Battler- Nick sees first hand how a person can go crazy. After getting thrown off a train, Nick meets two friends named Bugs and Ad. Nick learns upon meeting Ad, that he is crazy. "I'm crazy Listen, you ever been crazy?- After Nick denies he has, he is very curious about how someone could go crazy, and Ad replies "When you got it you don't even know about it."" In "Big Two-Hearted River- Nick is on the verge of going "crazy-. He takes the camping trip to have a "satisfactory- feeling, and to feel "all the old feeling."" His unconscious struggle to stay sane is constant throughout the whole story, "Big Two-Hearted River-. He tries to stay sane by doing simple things such as smoking a cigarette, drying in the sun, and wiggling his toes in the water. It seems as if Nick went on the hike to keep his sanity, to feel those old feelings, and keeps hiking to become worn-out so he no longer has to think. Nick doesn't stop to set up camp and to cook dinner when he first thinks of it; he wants to prove that he has self-control. The way he performs his rituals serves as therapy. Nick's view of sanity changes from an illusion to a reality, by almost going insane himself.
