Hemingway scholar Wendolyn Tetlow says that from its inception the collection was written with a rhythmic and lyrical unity reminiscent of Pound's "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" and T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land". The carefully crafted sequence continues in the 1925 edition, beginning with the first five Nick Adams stories, which are about violence and doom, empty relationships and characters lacking self-awareness. The first two stories, "Indian Camp" and "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife", can be read as an exercise in counterpoint, where feelings of loss, anger, and evil are ignored and repressed. "The End of Something" and "The Three-Day Blow" also form a pair; in the first Nick breaks up with his girlfriend, in the second he gets drunk and denies the relationship has ended, convincing himself that it will all work out. This state of denial continues in "The Battler", the fifth story; when faced with violence Nick will not recognize that he is in danger. "A Very Short Story", about betrayal, and wounding, ends the sequence according to Tetlow, who suggests these are stories in which Hemingway writes about the "most bitter feelings of loss and disillusionment". The characters face loss with inner strength, stoicism and a sense of acceptance; they build strength in the stories that come after, gaining self-awareness as they accept the futility and pain of life. The collection ends with "Big Two-Hearted River", in which Nick finds tranquility, perhaps even happiness, in solitude. Wagner-Martin notes that "it is this essential tranquility that in retrospect heightens the tension and sorrow of the preceding pieces."