In "Indian Camp," Nick is exposed to the most significant parts of a person's life: the beginning and the end. However, this doesn't seem like a traditional way for a child to witness either of these things. Nick's reactions seem to be quite different than what they might be if he first witnessed a traditional birth in a hospital or by visiting a nursing home or attending a funeral. Instead, he is present for an impromptu C-section and a man abruptly ending his own life. As a result, I don't think Nick quite sees the joy of a new child in the world or the sorrow of losing someone.
Right off the bat, when Nick and the doctor arrive, Nick hears the woman screaming, which makes him a bit upset, as he wants his mother to make it stop. As his father starts to operate on the woman, Nick refuses to look and turns away, seeing it as disgusting. Though these reactions are perfectly understandable, I think that in most cases of someone having a baby, once the baby is born, people don't think much about all of the pain of the birth. They are more happy that there is a new baby. However, Nick does not witness that joy to counteract all of the pain that he has witnessed. First of all, he does not see the mother as very happy, and the father clearly is not happy, as he kills himself, and no one really draws a lot of attention to the baby. Therefore, I think that Nick has a bit more of a negative view towards birth, as he, as a child, first witnesses only the painful, and not the happy aspects of it.
Nick's view towards death becomes a bit different from what I would think of as ordinary as well. Although it is a terrible image for him to see a dead man who has slit his own throat, he doesn't really see any suffering that the man goes through. He also knows that the man ended his life on his own accord. Leaving the camp, it says that Nick felt "quite sure he would never die." This might mean that in seeing how the man ended his own life, he feels like he would never do that and therefore feels more in control of his own death.
I agree with Annemarie's point of view that Nick only saw the negative side of going through the birth process: the suicide of the father, and the pain of the mother. I won't be surprised if he was scarred for the rest of his life and resistant to having a child in the future, as we are most impressionable when we are children. Hemingway also doesn't focus on the positive aspects of giving birth at all: in fact, we don't even know what happens to the baby after he is born.
ReplyDeleteThis story really does gives the impression that Nick has only seen the negative side of birth and it seems to have affected him. I wouldn't be surprised if this is why he broke up with his girlfriend in "The end of something". Since, if he didn't, at some point he would have to again experience the pains of the birthing process.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how Nick was exposed to both life and death and both of them were depicted as only suffering. To me, Nick seemed pretty unfazed by what he saw and/or didn't understand it since the only conclusion he drew was that he would never die.
ReplyDeleteYes, there's a potent irony in young Nick's "conclusion" from this whole experience--it seems like he takes precisely the *wrong* idea away from this whole encounter with death and suffering (seemingly his first exposure to the idea of suicide). This is the first of many Hemingway endings undercut by irony.
DeleteI definitely thought the live vs. death thing was interesting. I almost saw Nick's anxiety over the situation more about being so close to a woman's body. I thought he was more grossed out by the process of childbirth. Which is understandable. But then it was definitely a big change when Nick couldn't take his eyes off of the dead man. Both are pretty hard to swallow ideas for such a young child, but the idea of child birth is usually conveyed as a "miracle" or something exciting and happy, and yet Nick is more drawn to the dead man. It's odd.
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