Indian Camp By Hemingway Essay Example For Students

Indian Camp By Hemingway Essay Ernest Hemingway pulled from his past present experiences to develop his ownthoughts concerning death, relationships, and lies. He then mixed these ideas,along with a familiar setting, to create a masterpiece. One such masterpiecewritten early in Hemingways career is the short story, Indian Camp.Indian Camp was originally published in the collection of inOur Time in 1925. A brief summary reveals that the main character, ateenager by the name of Nick, travels across a lake to an Indian village. Whileat the village Nick observes his father, who is a doctor, deliver a baby to anIndian by caesarian section. As the story continues, Nicks father discoversthat the newborns father has committed suicide. Soon afterward Nick and hisfather engage in a discussion about death, which brings the story to an end. With thought and perception a reader can tell the meaning of the story. Thecharters of Nick and his father resemble the relationship of Hemingway and hisfather. Hemingway grew up in Oak Park, a middle class suburb, under the watchfuleye of his parents, Ed and Grace Hemingway. Ed Hemingway was a doctor whooccasionally took his son along on professional visits across Walloon Laketo the Ojibway Indians during summer vacations (Waldhorn 7). These medicaltrips taken by Ernest and Ed would provide the background information needed tointroduce nick and his father while on their medical trip in IndianCamp. These trips were not the center point of affection between Ed andErnest, but they were part of the whole. The two always shared a closefather-son bond that Hemingway often portrayed in his works: Nicks closeattachment to his father parallels Hemingways relationship with Ed. The growingboy finds in the father, in both fiction and life, not only a teacher-guide butalso a fixed refuge against the terrors of the emotional and spiritual unknownas they are encountered. In his father Ernest had someone to lean on (Shaw 14). In Indian Camp, nick stays in his fathers arms for a sense ofsecurity and this reinforces their close father-son relationship. When Nick seesthe terror of death, in the form of suicide, his father is right there tocomfort him. From this we are able to see how Nick has his father to, physicallyand mentally, lean on, much like Hemingway did (Shaw 11). Hemingways love for his father was not always so positive though, and he oftenexpressed his feelings about his situation though his literature. WhenHemmingway was young, his father persuaded him to have his tonsils removed by afriend, Dr. Wesley Peck. Even though it was Dr. Peck who performed the painfuloperation, Hemingway always held it against his father for taking out histonsils without an anaesthetic (Meyers 48). Hemingway saw the opportunityto portray his father in Indian Camp as the cold-hearted man who hadhis tonsils yanked out without anaesthetic. In a reply to Nicks question aboutgiving the Indian woman something to stop screaming, his father states,No. I havent any anaestheticBut her screams are not important. I donthear them because they are not important. (Tessitore 18) Hemingway lashedout at his father one more time before the story ends. In IndianCamp, Hemingway uses the conversation between Nick and his father,concerning the suicide of the Indian, to show his distaste for his own fatherssuicide: Why did he kill himself, Daddy? I dont know Nick. He couldntstand things, I guess. Do many men kill themselves, Daddy? Not very many,Nick Is dying hard, Daddy? No, I think its pretty easy, Nick. It alldepends. (Hemingway 19) Hemingway saw his father as a weak working man whoserved his wife, Grace, unconditionally. Ed worked a full day to come home toclean house, prepare food, and tend to the children. He had promised Grace thatif she would marry him, she would not have to do housework for as long as helived. Ill and depressed, Ed committed suicide in 1928. Hemingway later referredto the situation by stating: I hated my mother as soon as I knew the scoreand loved my father until he embarrassed me with his cowardiceMy mother is anall time all American bitch and she would make a pack mule shoot himself, letalone poor bloody father. (Meyers 212) Hemingway uses IndianCamp to express his feelings that his father was a coward. He did this byhaving Nicks father refer to suicide as being pretty easy, which iscomparable to a cowards way out of life. Therefore, Hemingway uses the story toportray his fathers death as cowardly. The characters and setting ofIndian Camp are undoubtedly influenced by Hemingways Childhood. Inmuch of the same respect, Hemingways second novel, A Farewell to Arms, hasinfluences from his adult years spent in the war. A Farewell to Arms is a tragiclove story in the midst of war. The main character, Fredrick Henry, is anambulance driver in World War I who is wounded in the trenches. Henry, now acasualty, is sent to recover at an American hospital in Milan. During his stay,henry falls in love with a nurse by the name of Catherine Barkley. The couplethen heads for Switzerland to escape the war and have a child. The novel takesan evil twist at the end though. Catherine dies while she is in labor, leavingHenry alone in the world. When comparing Ernest Hemingway and the characterFrederick Henry, there are some very obvious re semblances. After not beingallowed to join the army due to bad vision in his left eye, Hemingway joined thewar effort during 1918 in Italy as an ambulance driver. Likewise, Hemingway madesure that Henry was also an ambulance driver in A Farewell to Arms. The mostnoticeable similarity is Hemingways war wound. While passing out chocolate andcigarettes to soldiers at night, Hemingway was hit by a mortar shell. Wounded,but not dead, Hemingway picked up an nearby casualty and began carrying him offthe battlefield. He succeeded in making it to the first aid center but was hitin the knees by machine-gun fire while on his journey. During his recover inMilan, Hemingway recorded his firsthand account of the action in a letterwritten to his parents. In it he stated: The 227 wounds I got from the trenchmortar didnt hurt a bit at the time, only my feet felt like I had rubber bootsfull of water on. Hot water. And my kneecap was acting queer. (Meyers 32)Hemingway survived a terrifying attack, whic h would serve as great material forA Farewell to Arms. In the novel, Henry suffers from an identical wound by atrench mortar. Henry states that: My legs felt warm and wet and my shoes werewet and warm inside. I knew that I was hit and leaned over and put my hand on myknee. My knee wasnt there. My hand went in and my kneed was down on my shin. Imagery In Barn Burning EssayBibliographyGajduske, E. Robert. Hemingways Paris. New York: Charles Scribners Sons,1978. Mahoney, John. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Barnes and Noble INC., 1967. McSowell, Nicholas. Life and Works of Hemingway. England: Wayland, 1988. Meyers,Jeffery. Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1985. Shaw, Samuel. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Company,1974. Tessitore, John. The Hunt and The Feast, A life of Ernest Hemingway. NewYork: Franklin Watts, 1996. Waldhorn, Arthur. A Readers Guide to ErnestHemingway. New York: Octagon Books, 1978. Hemingway, Ernest. IndianCamp. In Our Time. New York: Charles Scribners Sons. 1970. Hemingway,Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Simon Schuster. 1995.