The Indian camp is considered as one of Hemingway's best short stories. For the most part, it focuses on the relationship between father and son, and life experiences like: childbirth, loss of innocence and suicide. Nick Adams, the son of the doctor, accompanies his father to the Indian camp where a woman that was pregnant has complications giving birth. Dr. Adams ends up performing a caesarian section, ultimately saving her and the baby’s life, but then the woman's husband commits suicide. This is Nick’s first traumatic incident, and the first sight of personal suffering. This is shown with his various questions he asked his father, like "do ladies always have such a hard time having babies?" (3) and "do many men kill themselves, Daddy?" (3), the repercussions of life seem as clear as day to Nick for the first time in his life.
The short story leaves us with a number of questions, such as why does the Indian husband kill himself? What is Uncle George's role, and why does he disappear by the end of the story? Although the story has a father-son dynamic, thinking of these questions push the audience to read beyond the fact that Nick’s father saved the Indian woman, and pay attention to the more traumatizing aspects. But Nick decides to reject empathy completely with him feeling he would never die (Tyler 39). His rejection of having objectivity has Nick become like his father, and have lack of humility towards the Indian woman. Indian camp was created with many aspects of
“The Jungle”, written by Upton Sinclair, Jr is a novel based on the hardships of immigrants in the early twentieth century. The author focuses in on a family that immigrated all the way from Lithuania to Chicago Illinois. They came to the states in hope for an abundance of opportunities, and a promising future but soon came to realize that their images of the American dream were anything but true.
One of the most important themes, masculinity, is portrayed directly at the start of Hemingway's short story collection starting with "Indian Camp." In the first short story the reader sees the novels protagonist, Nick Adams', "response to violence and suffering inflicted on others will ultimately define his own sense of masculinity" (Frazier). Witnessing this dramatic event at such a young age will define Nick's life and change the way he views certain aspects of life just from watching a woman give birth. Nick's maturity and responsibility are also themes that are greatly exploited just as well as his masculinity.
First of all, Nick has to survive for days without any family to support him. Nick got a letter from his father. Nick is hoping that he can escape the labor camp and save his father but it is hard without family and knowing they can be in danger. This relates to not having family to support him because his mom is still in London and his father was taken to another labor camp while Nick is in a camp. A quote that helps support Nick’s love to his father, "Oh, he'll care" Nick said. "I'm going to be waiting for him up in his bedroom, and I'm not going to say a word about how I got there until he promises help my father." (Roland Smith Pg. 214) Nick will go at great lengths to save his father even if it mean risking his life. This
Throughout the story, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior goes through many ups and downs. This story is about how Junior, an indian from the Spokane reservation, decides to go to Rearden, the school for non-indians because of how run-down his school is and has trouble fitting in. Some of the ways Junior dealt with those downs include his uncanny sense of humor, his love for his friends, and the want to fit in and prove he’s just as good as everyone else at his new school.
Readers tend to look closely at the chapter structure and interpret them as individual pieces without stepping back to see them as a whole; yet, Hemingway notes that there is, in fact, a sense of unity between the chapters and vignettes. An obvious unifying thread is the presence of the Nick Adams stories. “Indian Camp” introduces the reader to a young, impressionable Nick. What follows are several interspersed stories that trace his coming of age in pieces such as “The Three Day Blow” and “The Battler.” The book concludes as the post-war Nick Adams provides an account of a fly-fishing adventure, bringing a sense closure to this central character. What complicates the book are the vignettes that are interspersed within the story sequence. This structure works to juxtapose thoughts and ideas, perhaps even disorient the reader, thus challenging the reader to find new interpretative strategies, much like a perspective one might need to look at modern art. Hemingway carefully chose this structure (just as he so mindfully chose his prose) as a way of framing Modernism through the written
The story, A Soldiers Home, is about a man in conflict with the past and present events in his life. The young man’s name is Harold Krebs. He recently returned from World War 1 to find everything almost exactly the same as when he left. He moved back into his parents house, where he found the same car sitting in the same drive way. He also found the girls looking the same, except now they all had short hair. When he returned to his home town in Oklahoma the hysteria of the soldiers coming home was all over. The other soldiers had come home years before Krebs had so everyone was over the excitement. When he first returned home he didn’t want to talk about the war at all. Then, when he suddenly felt the urge and need to talk about it no one
Hemingway, to illustrate the theme of sovereignty, uses the character of Nick Adams. Nick is a character who has been injured in the war and, though his wound has healed over, Nick has yet to recover mentally from the attack. Hemingway’s portrayal of Nick is of a man who is trying to regain his identity. Hemingway depicts this through stream of consciousness and symbolism. The stream of
Hemingway's "Indian Camp" concerns Nick Adams' journey into the unknown to ultimately experience and witness the full cycle of birth and death. Although Nick's experience is a major theme in the story, cultural inequality also is an issue that adds to the the story's narrative range. Throughout this short story, there are many examples of racial domination between Nick's family and the Indians. Dr. Adams' and Uncle George's racist behavior toward the Native Americans are based on the history of competition between Caucasians and America's indigenous peoples.
In the beginning of the story we are introduced to Nick, his father and uncle George who arrive to an Indian camp on an Island in Michigan. The Indians in the camp are not very privileged and they live in shanties. Nick, his father and uncle George are lead to a shanty were a young Indian woman is
Soldier’s Home is a story about the experiences of a soldier returning from war. The narrative starts with a description of an image or photograph of Harold Krebs. Krebs is the main character of this story. He was a young man who was attending the Methodist College in Kansas before he had to enlist in the Marines to find in the war (Hemingway 111-116). The opening picture is an increasingly significant source of contrast between the young man who went to war and the one who comes back who has become silent and alienated after coming home. Krebs comes back in 1919 even though the war ended in 1918. His return is not marked by celebrations and parades that were often given to the young soldiers who had managed to come home early. Rather, Krebs finds out that the people are not overly excited about his news of the war unless he lies and exaggerates about his role during the war (Hemingway 111-116).
Setting: Post World War I era, 1919. In Howard’s (Kreb’s) quaint home town in Oklahoma. All who have returned from the harsh war are welcomed; their stories as well. All except for Krebs.
In Big Two Hearted River, Ernest Hemingway used his own experiences he had during the war and the issues he had when injured in the war. As soon as Nick stepped off the train the reader could feel the disappointment that Nick had and the understanding that he was a troubled soul. At the same time this was Nick’s way to treat himself by staying close to nature and the simpler things in life. No matter how happy Nick would get he would continue to have flashbacks of things he has done and friends he has lost along the way. Throughout the short story by Hemingway, Nick will continue to move through his problems from the war by camping and catch his food from the river and the reader will be able to see Nicks pain and happiness.
In ?Indian Camp? the roles we see in ?Hills Like White Elephants? are reversed. The primary characters are now those in the service sector with the Indians filling the rest of Hemingway's equation as the foreigners. As the father figure tries to gently bring his son up properly his moral lessons and further introduction to reality are solely facilitated through their traumatic experience in the service industry dealing with a female who is a foreigner just like as in ?Hills Like White Elephants?. Except here it isn't explicitly stated that the Indians speak a native language, English, another language or a combination as the waitress in the previous story. It's through the apathetic treatment of his patient that Nicks father first develops a new depth to his character. In telling statement to the son when he begs the father to do something about the Indian womans
In “Indian Camp” we meet Nick as he joins his father to help a pregnant Indian woman in labor. Nick’s father, a doctor, brings him to
“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.