Indian Camp

A detailed Summary of Indian Camp

The Horror of Life from Birth to Death

During the Modernist Movement, existentialist writers wrote about the meaninglessness of life. Existentialists believe that life is a struggle against the nothingness of the world. They believe there is no higher meaning to the existence of man, and they deny the existence of God. Ernest Hemingway portrays three different ways of coping with the meaninglessness of life in his short story "Indian Camp." The three characters that portray the three different outlooks are Nick's father, Uncle George, and the Indian father. Ernest Hemingway uses the environment in his short story "Indian Camp" to develop the thematic vision that there are different ways people can cope with the horror of life from the moment of birth and until death.

In the short story, Hemmingway portrays a microcosm of life by including a baby's birth and a man's suicide in the short period of the story. The pregnant Indian woman struggles in labor for two days without any medical attention until Nick's father's arrival. Nick's father describes to Uncle George after the procedure, "Doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders" (18). The description of the birth is unnatural

and horrible. The grotesque imagery used with the "jack-knife" and fishing line as substitutes to conventional surgical equipment help create a savage environment. The allegorical meaning of the birth is that the beginning of life is horrible.

Throughout the story, Nick tries to find meaning in a horrible and meaningless environment. Nick responds to his father telling him that the Indian woman is going to have a baby by saying, "I know" (16). Nick's father says, "You don't know. Listen to me. What she is going through is called being in labor. The baby wants to be born and she wants it to be born. All her muscles are trying to get the baby born. That is what is happening when she screams" (16). Hemmingway characterizes Nick as a naive young boy by his response and his father's stern remarks. Nick's father tries to teach Nick that he does not understand the circle of life.

Hemmingway also includes a horrible death in the microcosm of life he creates in the short story. The father of the baby stays in the room during the birth. In the end, the horror of the birth is too much for the father to take and he takes his life by slitting his throat from ear to ear. Hemmingway uses grotesque imagery when he says, "The blood had flowed down into a pool where his body sagged the bunk" (18). The image of the Indian father's blood pooling up in the impression his body makes in his bed is revolting. Hemmingway includes the death as a suicide to emphasize the horror of the end of life; any other type of death would be less horrible. Hemmingway uses the birth and the death in the short story to produce a microcosm of life and portray it as full of horror.

Hemmingway uses Nick's Father to represent the best way to cope with the horror of life. When Nick asks his father if there is anything to give the Indian woman to make her stop screaming, his father replies, "No. I haven't any anaesthetic...But her screams are not important. I don't hear them because they are not important" (16). Ni

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Approximate Word count = 1359
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English