Indian Camp
The Horror of Life from Birth to DeathDuring 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 . . .
When they first arrive at the Indian camp, Uncle George is smoking a cigar in the dark. Hemmingway uses grotesque imagery when he says, “The blood had flowed down into a pool where his body sagged the bunk” (18). The father of the baby stays in the room during the birth. The narrator says, “(Nick) felt quite sure that he would never die” (19). Nick responds to his father telling him that the Indian woman is going to have a baby by saying, “I know” (16). That is what is happening when she screams” (16). Hemmingway characterizes Nick as a naïve young boy by his response and his father’s stern remarks. The grotesque imagery used with the “jack-knife” and fishing line as substitutes to conventional surgical equipment help create a savage environment. Hemmingway shows how hard it is for the Indian father to stay in the cabin by having all of the other men leave the camp because they can not stand the cries. In the end of the story, Nick tries to make sense of life by attempting to relate to nature. This way of coping is better than the method Uncle George represents but leads to the Indian father’s death; therefore Hemmingway is not saying it is the ideal method. The horror of the birth devastates and destroys the Indian father. The environment in Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Indian Camp” is used to develop the thematic vision of life being full of horror from the moment of birth and until death.
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