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Two row boats carried the doctor, his son Nick and Uncle George across the bay to the beach. The boats were rowed by Indians. As they reached the beach Uncle George started smoking his cigar and offered the Indians also. From the beach they walked up through the meadow. The young Indian carried a lantern to show the way. Then they went into the woods and followed a trail leading .As they approached the shanties the dogs came barking at them and were shooed off by the Indians. An old woman stood at the doorway of the shanty nearest to the road.
Inside the shanty a young woman lay on a berth who was trying to have a baby and her husband lay on the upper berth and smoked as he had cut his foot three days ago. The woman screamed as the doctor entered. The doctor asked the old woman to boil water. He told his son that the woman was in labor pain and so she was screaming. The son wanted his father to give her something to stop her scream. The husband in the upper berth rolled over against the wall. He was very upset.
The doctor put several things he unwrapped from a handkerchief into the water and left them to boil. He scrubbed his hand with hot water and soap. Nick watched his father as he was explaining him how babies are supposed to be born head first but when the position changes the trouble starts. He told him that he might have to operate on the lady. Uncle George and three Indian men held the women still. Nick held the basin for his father. At last the doctor picked up the baby slapped it to make it breathe and handed it over to the old women. Then the doc sewed up the incisor he had made. The woman who had been operated was calm now. The doctor promised to come back in the morning and said that the nurse would be there.
He was happy that he had performed a miracle by doing a caesarian with a jack knife and sewed with a nine foot tapered gut leaders. When he turned to tend the father, he found that the man had cut his throat from ear to ear and the open razor lay near by. Nick too had seen it. Doctor regretted having brought his son there. The father explained Nick that the women did not always have hard time but this was an exceptional case. He also said that some fathers kill themselves in such conditions out of guilt.
Analysis of Indian Camp
Ernest Hemingway diverges from the path of the typical protagonist in an initiation story with “Indian Camp.” Campbell suggests that most initiation stories end with an “epiphany” of some kind which signals the maturing process in the protagonist. Though much of the story does follow the orthodox pattern of an initiation, Nick, the protagonist in “Indian Camp,” does not come to such a realization in the end. His maturing process remains incomplete in this initiation.
Though all of Campbell‘s criteria for being an initiation story is not present in “Indian Camp,” this story unarguably represents an initiation, or a loss of innocence, for Nick. First, the separation occurs when Nick arrives at the camp. When the “young Indian stopped and blew out his lantern,” the literal shift from lightness to darkness signals the figurative separation for Nick (479). He no longer sits in his comfort zone. Other factors that i

Nick’s loss of innocence involves the entire cycle of life. Another feature supporting Campbell’s definition of an initiation story, the crossing-over point, stands out here as well. From the beginning of the story, Nick and his father climb into a rowboat and then “cross-over” from one piece of land to another via the water. Not only does the water serve as a way of passage, but it also symbolizes the cycle of life, from birth to death. When Nick and his father start to return home, “The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water,” (481). At the same moment a baby gains life, a father takes his own life. For young Nick, this seems too much to bear. He poses numerous questions to his mentor, including: “Do ladies always have such a hard time having babies?, and “Do many men kill themselves, Daddy? (481). The pains in life become clear to Nick for the first time.
An Analysis of Ernest Hemmingway's Indian Camp


Ernest Hemmingway's Indian Camp has varied degrees of ideas and issues. Each time I read the story or look at a specific passage, I understand it a bit differently. Keeping an open mind while reading helps to understand the story with many different assumptions or conclusions. The readers are left to assume and add their input to complete the story.

The story never states that Nick, Nick's father or Uncle George are Caucasian. Nor does it say they are related. I believe the reader can assume this due to the use of "Uncle" with Georges' name. However, I personally have friends that are not blood relatives, yet they are considered family and called Aunt or Uncle so and so. Let's assume that all three of these characters are also Indians. Prehaps they come across the river because they belong to a separate tribe. Based on this assumption, the whole story changes. Uncle George calling the biting, laboring woman a "Damn Squaw *censored*!" maybe acceptable. The story doesn't say the guides objected to Uncle George's insult. Maybe it wasn't even an insult. I can relate this to today's society when one calls another Honkey. That's OK unless the person saying it is not Caucasian. Sipiora gives an analysis of "Indian Camp" (pp 31-34) yet this analysis is based on assumptions also. The complete story can only be assumed without knowing a bit of Hemmingway's personal life. An important piece of information would be that Hemmingway's dad, Clarence Edmunds, was a physician himself. (Schafer, 1)

If Nick and Nick's father are of the Indian dissent, could this explain why Nick's father has limited equipment or no anesthetic? Native Americans don't always agree or conform to modern society technologies. Normally a Native American's faith is strong. Could it be that this laboring woman's faith was to be used as anesthetic? Another conclusion might be that Uncle George was smoking medicinal cigars. In the story Uncle George gave the cigars to the escorts. Is this Uncle George's way of asking for their help? Perhaps Nick's father may have not been able to afford any luxuries such as scalpels, sponges, sutures, etc. The reader could conclude that Nick's father, aka Chief, had no transportation to get to the village to buy or trade for equipment or anesthetic. I would believe that if Nick's father was a middle to upper-class person as assumed in Sipiora's analysis, then he would have had these items. Interesting here again is the fact that Hemmingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois in a "upper middle-class" (Schafer 1)

Nick's father appears to be an educated person treating the under-educated Indian society. This "doctor is superior to all" attitude is interesting. Within the past 5-10 years, this belief has decreased. Patients used to do everything their doctor suggested. Now society asks questions, suggests treatments and even consult their friends for advise on medical issues. No longer does society put the doctor on a pedestal. This is not to say doctors are not respected. However, this approach does make the doctor to seem more like a regular human. In "Indian Camp" Hemmingway makes Nick's father seem ordinary. No one is bowing down to him, saluting him, hailing him or making Nick's father to be anything but ordinary.

Fishing is obvious one of Nick's father's ordinary-person hobbies. One way this is demonstrated is by Nick's father performing surgery with a jack knife similar to gutting a fish. Nick's father also sutures with "nine-foot, tapered gut leaders". Another similarity to fishing may be the fact that Nick's father rows the boat back home much like one would after a long day of fishing. Where did the guides go? Why are they not rowing Nick and Nick's father home? If Nick and Nick's father were visitors (white man) would the guides not take them back across the river? Possibly, Nick's father was a regular human that liked to fish and was also the village doctor.

As stated there are many different ways that the reader could interrupt this story. As Sipiora states, Hemmingway uses an "iceberg principle" (p. 31) leaving only 1/3 of the story exposed to the reader. Then the reader must assume and conclude his or her own thoughts to make the story complete. Each of us are so different and we have experienced such different routes in our life that the way Sipiora interrupts the story or Johnny or Suzie will be different than my own interpretation. Some interesting facts about Hemmingway that may help the reader to better understand Indian Camp are

"the first in a series of stories of Nick Adams. It initiates a• sequence of stories that follows Nick from boyhood through his combat experience in World War I" (Moore),

He lived with his mother and physician father in a "remote region of northern Michigan" (Moore),•

"he felt bitter toward both his parents, particularly his mother, whom he viewed as selfish and domineering" (Schafter).•

Knowing these elements about the author gives the reader a better foundation of understanding of the story. And only know do I think I see the story as Hemmingway wanted me to.

Works Cited

Moore, R. Indian Camp Summary. e-notes.com. February 4, 2004. http://www.allhemingway.com/indian-camp/

Schafer, Nancy Imelda. Earnest Hemmingway. Empirezine.com. February 3, 2004. http://www.empirezine.com/spotlight/hemmingway/hem1.htm

Sipiora, Phillip. Reading and Writing about Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall 2002.
Summary and Analysis by Short Story
"Indian Camp"

This story is a good example of the "initiation story," a short story that centers around a main character who comes into contact with an idea, experience, ritual, or knowledge that he did not previously know. Hemingway wrote a number of initiation stories, or as they are sometimes referred to, "rite of passage" stories, and the main character in most of these stories is Nick Adams, a young man much like Hemingway himself.
In this story, Nick Adams is a very young boy in the Michigan north woods, accompanying his father, Dr. Adams, and his uncle George to an American Indian camp on the other side of a lake. Hemingway's own father was a doctor, who spent much time with his son in the northern woods of Michigan (most critics read this story as somewhat autobiographical). Here, a very young Nick is initiated into concepts that remained of highest importance to Hemingway throughout his writing career: life and death; suffering, pain, and endurance; and suicide.
Nick's father goes to the American Indian camp to help a young American Indian woman who has been screaming because of severe labor pains for two days, still unable to deliver her baby. When Dr. Adams arrives, she is lying in a bottom bunk; her husband, who cut his foot badly with an axe three days before, is lying in the bunk bed above her. Doctor Adams asks Nick to assist him, holding a basin of hot water while four American Indian men hold down the woman. Using his fishing jackknife as a scalpel, Dr. Adams performs a cesarean on the woman, delivers the baby boy, then sews up the woman's incision with some gut leader line from his fishing tackle. Exhilarated by the success of his impromptu, improvised surgery, Doctor Adams looks into the top bunk and discovers that the young American Indian husband, who listened to his wife screaming during her labor pains and during the cesarean, has cut his throat.

Although this very short story deals with violence and suffering, with birth and death, sexism and racism, Hemingway's emphasis is not on the shocking events themselves; instead, Hemingway shows the effect of birth and death on young Nick Adams. Nick's progression in this short story is vividly portrayed in polarities. For instance, on the way to the camp in the boat, Nick is sitting in his father's arms; on the way back, Nick sits on the opposite end of the boat. Similarly, while his father wants Nick to witness the birth (and his surgical triumph), Nick turns his head away; when the American Indian husband is discovered dead in his bed, Nick sees it, even though his father wants to protect him from it. The fact that Nick sits across from his father in the boat on the way back after this experience can indicate a pulling out from underneath his father's influence.
The young boy asks his father why the young American Indian man cut his throat and is told, "I don't know. . . . He couldn't stand things, I guess." However, there are more subtle undercurrents for the American Indian husband's suicide as well. The treatment and attitude of Dr. Adams toward the woman, who is an American Indian, are key also. When Dr. Adams tells Nick that her screaming is not important, it is at this point that the American Indian husband rolls over in his bunk toward the shanty wall, as he is found later, after slitting his own throat with a razor. While this failure to confront the events at hand indicates fear, it can also indicate the American Indian husband's resignation to the thoughtless racism of the White men who have come to help her.
Some have suggested that Uncle George is possibly the father of the child, as he seems to have a friendly relationship with the American Indians in the beginning of the story and hands out cigars to everyone after the birth. His handing out cigars to the men present could possibly be interpreted as paternity, although one could also surmise that he is simply sharing his way of celebrating the miracle of birth with the American Indians. Additionally, he stays behind in the camp after Dr. Adams and Nick leave. Following the interpretation of Uncle George being the baby's father, the husband's suicide could be seen as an inability to deal with his own shame and the cuckoldry of his wife.