Themes and message
The main themes explored in the short story “The Three-Day Blow” by Ernest Hemingway are ideals, transience and change, masculinity and control. These themes are enhanced through multiple motifs: alcohol, break-ups and relationships, male friendship and bonding, and the weather. In other words, although the story is short and seems simple, it is filled with deeper meanings and reflections about what it means to be a man, how to handle inevitable change, or how masculinity is linked to the fear of missing out.
Ideals
The theme of ideals is explored at numerous levels and through all the characters mentioned in the story. An ideal is something one wants to achieve; it is a situation, context, or principle that seems perfect.
The story presents us with different ideals that are either connected or in opposition. The story opens up with a practical ideal: on a stormy rainy weather, being inside Bill’s cottage next to the fire seems like an ideal situation. As it turns out, the characters end up leaving the cottage because this ideal situation becomes unbearable for Nick, because the conversation gets him thinking about his break-up with Marjorie.
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Change and the transient nature of life
The theme of change and transience (the idea that nothing lasts forever) is explored through the motif of the weather, through Nick’s attitude, and through the references to Bill and Nick’s fathers.
The action is set during the first autumn storm, expected to last for three days (the three-day blow). The depressing autumn scenery and the windy weather convey the idea of natural change that human beings cannot fight with and that they simply have to face and accept, which mark the passage to another stage of the natural cycle. The same idea is subtly suggested by the baseball seasons (they are cyclical, end and begin every year) or by the references to Bill and Nick’s fathers who are at a different stage in their lives. While Bill and Nick are becoming adults, their fathers are getting old and have their own regrets.
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Masculinity and control
The theme of masculinity and control is mostly explored through Bill’s character in the short story. Throughout the narrative, Bill tries to be in control of the conversation with Nick, to impose his views and to gradually steer it towards what he really wants to talk about, Nick’s break-up with Marjorie.
Bill does not only act as a person in control but he also expresses his ideal of masculinity and control.
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