Julia SánchezLanguage II – Book review

2015

Indian Camp by Hemingway

A harsh criticism of masculinity

"Indian Camp" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. The story was first published in 1924 in Ford Madox Ford's literary magazine Transatlantic Review in Paris. "Indian Camp" influenced much of Hemingway's subsequent work, including "The Sun Also Rises", "For Whom the Bell Tolls“, "The Old Man and the Sea", among others. When the story was published, the quality of writing was noted and praised, moreover, nowadays critics consider "Indian Camp" an important story in Hemingway’s canon.

The story begins as the young Nick Adams, his father -and doctor-, his uncle and their Indian guides row across a lake to a nearby Indian camp to help a pregnant woman. Nick's father is forced to perform a caesarean intervention on the woman without anaesthetics because the baby is in the breech position; he asks Nick to assist by holding a basin. The story goes on and after the baby is delivered, Nick's father turns to the woman's husband on the top bunk and finds that he slit his throat with a razor; unable to stand the merciless operation. On the contrary, Nick’s father brought his young son to see what the father of the newborn could not stand. Ideal male behaviour is shown through the doctor: he does not hesitate to cut the woman and to examine the state of the man’s death body. The doctor apparently wants to teach Nick a stoic attitude; he does not give Nick long answers to his questions, and he treats this incident with silence himself.

This strong, silent masculinity reappears throughout the flow of the story in a sharp way only Hemingway is capable of achieving. The story ends with only Nick and his father on the lake, rowing away from the camp. Nick asks his father why the woman's husband killed himself, and tells himself that he will never die.

This story clearly introduces the theme of masculinity. Hemingway turns the typically female-act of giving birth into a male-dominated situation. This is shown as the story focuses on the experience of the doctor rather than the woman herself. Most of the attitudes coming from the doctor -Nick´s father- show us indifference and even contempt through the mask of masculinity; however, these are not directed to Nick but to the Native Americans. This can be considered a sharp and smart criticism of western society implied by Hemingway –the bottom of the iceberg-.

In this masculine atmosphere the suicide of the Indian father, thus, seems to be an example of a man acting in a feminine manner. It must not be forgotten that the newborn family is Native American, so, opposite to Nick and his father, they are not strikingly influenced by the white culture that has such a stereotype of masculinity. As a consequence, the newborn’s father was allowed by his own environment to react in such a distressing way.

All things considered, by writing this short story Hemingway created a new writing style which has become known as the "iceberg theory", because in Hemingway's writing the hard facts float above water while the supporting structure -including the symbolism of masculinity- operates out of sight. I strongly recommend this reading not only to improve your English reading –due to its sophisticated lexicon- but also to enjoy a subtle narration and a harsh criticism.