Indian Camp

“Indian Camp”
Author	Ernest Hemingway
Country	United States
Language	English
Published in	Transatlantic Review
Publication date	1924

“Indian Camp” is a 1924 short story by Ernest Hemingway.

Characters

Nick

Nick is a young boy who goes on a trip with his dad to an Indian Camp. He has no idea of what he is going to encounter when he arrives because his father did not tell him where they were going or why. The story is based on Nick's experiences at the Indian Camp.

Nick's father

Nick's father is a doctor who goes to the Indian Camp to help a young Indian woman give birth to her baby. Towards Nick he is very caring and he seems to be a good father.

Uncle George

Uncle George goes along with Nick and his father to the Indian Camp. He doesn't seem to be as nice and caring as Nick's father. The narrator of the story gives the reader the impression that he doesn't have any sort of attachments, and shows up whenever he wants to. Textual evidence suggests that George might be the baby’s father.

Young Indian Woman

The young Indian woman has been in labor for two days. Her baby is not turned correctly and Nick's father, the doctor, must operate on her. The doctor performs a Caesarian with a joack-knife and then sews her up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders. She is took weak to see her baby after it is born.

Metaphors

Nick and his father set out for the Indian Camp during the nighttime and come back during the day. This is a metaphor for Nick not knowing what he is going to encounter and then coming out of the whole situation by learning a few life lessons. "Other metaphoric relationships (father and son, white man and Indian, middle-class and poor) serve important purposes in this compelling story"(34).

Major Themes

One major theme of this story is how Nick matured after he witnessed both life and death. He went into the camp as being a young inexperienced boy and came out being confused about death. The trip started out as just being a doctor with his son going into an Indian camp to deliver a baby. Not only does he learn about new life by watching the woman give birth, he learns that sometimes women go through great pain. Women can sometimes have difficulty having children. One of these reasons could be because the baby is not turned the correct way. His father explains to him that babies should be born head first and that when they are not it can cause trouble for everybody. [29]

While they were there, the baby's father committed suicide. Nick witnessed birth and death on this trip. He came out with questions about life and death he would have never had before. Although Nick did mature a great deal, he is still young and doesn't fully understand everything he witnessed. ". . .he felt quite sure he would never die"(31). Nick doesn't yet understand that everyone has to die at some point in their life.

Another theme of the story was how the doctor treated the Indians in the story. He was very caring towards Nick, but when it came to the Indians he acted as if they had no feelings. "But her screams are not important. I don't hear them because they are not important"(29). He didn't seem to care that he was in terrible pain and just continued with the surgery.

The point of a white doctor being called to aid the Indians helps push the notion that Western medicine had also advanced to the point that it's seemingly leaving Indian practices at the time obsolete.

Works Cited

Sipiora, Phillip. “Indian Camp.” Reading and Writing about Literature. New Jersey: Upper Saddle River, 2002.