Indian Camp

            There’s something about the term short stories that makes me excited. I’m not sure if its simply the promise of the reading being short, or that they remind me of the Pixar animated short films that come before a feature film. Either way, it just simply intrigues my interest.

            As I discovered after reading “Indian Camp,” Hemingway short stories are kind of a beast of their own. In my first read through, I found myself confused, overwhelmed, and unsure of the point of the story. Unlike the short stories I think of, Hemingway stories kind of throw you in the middle of the action right out of the gate. Sure, he gives you a little bit of the context, maybe a name or two, but otherwise the story is already happening. I guess what I’m trying to say is, Hemingway short stories give me a similar experience as starting to watch a movie you’ve never seen about half way through. My mind scrambles to get acquainted with the characters and fill in the back-story. Once my puzzling read through came to a close, I decided I would sleep on it, and wait until tomorrow to try it again.

            On my second reading, I found the story a little easier to understand. Essentially, Nick who is interning for his father heads over to an Indian Camp with Uncle George to help an Indian woman who has been in labor for two days. The doctor performs a makeshift Caesarian section, and we find that the baby’s father kills himself. The whole instance proves overwhelming to Nick, who is left with several questions for his father at the end. A pretty eventful three pages.

            While nothing really stood out to me the first time I read it, the second time yielded some instances of dialogue between Nick and his father that seemed out of the ordinary. The first occurred here: “This Lady is going to have a baby, Nick.” “I know.” “You don’t know. Listen to me…” I’m not sure if this instance is simply characteristic of Nick’s father, asserting his authority over Nick or not. It did, however, remind me of a coach or instructor. I remember in my club volleyball days, my coaches would say similar things, such as, “Do you know how to dig that kind of hit?” “Yes.” “Then why didn’t you dig it?” Perhaps Nick’s father is simply trying to establish his role as the teacher and Nick’s as the learner just as my coaches did with me. The whole point of an internship is gaining experience and knowledge you didn’t previously have. Still, it seems there is something condescending about the way Nick’s father said it.

           

            The second occurrence was after the doctor delivered the child. Without any anesthetic on hand, the doctor cuts open the Indian woman with a jack knife. The pain from labor is only made more excruciating. You know it’s bad when you need multiple people to hold you down during the procedure. Sure, Nick’s father feels like he’s some sort of macho man afterwards. He’s proud of his accomplishment. But I find it interesting that after such graphic operation he’d just casually say to his son, “How do you like being an intern?” Nick can’t say he doesn’t like it, but that’s clearly the case. He looked away to not see what his father was doing. I’m not sure how old Nick is, but at any age, I imagine all the screaming, blood, and surgical operation is a lot to handle all at once. I felt overwhelmed just reading it. Sure enough, Hemingway isn’t done with his innocence stripping experience. Nick sees his father tip the head of the Indian Father back who killed himself.

            At this point, I simply felt bad for Nick. The poor kid can’t escape this emotionally excruciating experience. Only at the end of the experience does Nick’s father apologize for the “awful mess” he put his son through. Sometimes people lose their innocence gradually, others in big chunks. This certainly was a big chunk for Nick. In one night, he was exposed to a world he probably had no idea existed, leaving him quite sure that he would never die.