Chapter 15 Summary

Memoir--This memoir, a departure from the topics of most of the other memoirs that deal with the war or the bullring, nevertheless continues a thematic thread that weaves consistently through the fabric of the book--the essence of fear and the way human beings deal with it. The subject is the hanging of a Chicago criminal, Sam Cardinella, whose fear was so great he had to be carried to the gallows and thereafter had to be tied into a chair on the trap so that he could be executed.

Story--"Big Two-Hearted River: Part II," continues Nick's fishing trip, beginning when he gets up in the morning and ending as the day ends and Nick has caught two trout. Nick's experience is described in obsessive detail, and the details are, for the most part, mundane, including how he catches grasshoppers for bait, how he...