Nick With Life example essay topic

Nick's Psychological Development in Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time In Hemingway's collection of short stories, In Our Time, we follow a character by the name of Nick Adams. We are introduced to Nick in "Indian Camp" as a young boy, and follow him to adulthood in both Parts I and II of "Big Two-Hearted River". Through this we see Nick develop and learn about some major facts of life. Nick is a character who is changes through the effects of war on many different levels. Although Hemingway hardly mentions the war, he uses the stories to express different effects and emotions caused by the war. In "Indian Camp" we meet Nick as he joins his father to help a pregnant Indian woman in labor.

Nick's father, a doctor, brings him to experience this as a sort of initiation of life. His father wants him to learn about life and wants to teach his son about being a doctor. While doing this, Nick's father is unconsciously presenting Nick with life while trying to shield him from death. When the Indian man commits suicide, Nick's father does not want him to see it.

A man who commits suicide lacks courage, and that is not something that Nick's father wants him to learn. Nick's father did not say much to him about this incident. This strong, silent masculinity reappears throughout these stories. When this happens, Nick's behavior also changes. Nick quickly refers to his father as "daddy" instead of "dad" as he did earlier. He is looking for his father to fix what has happened and comfort him.

This tragic incident scars Nick more than even his father understands. Witnessing suicide was too disturbing to Nick at his young age, thus restraining his psychological development. Reacting to this, at the end of the story. ".. [Nick] felt quite sure that he would never die" (19). This makes it obvious that although Nick witnessed death first hand, that he still does not fully understand it.

Hemingway is introducing the theme of masculinity in the story, and how Nick is going to struggle with this throughout his life. Nick's father stormed into a typically female situation (giving birth) and turned it into a male-dominated environment. This introduces Nick to prefer a masculine life rather than a feminine life. In the story "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" we briefly see Nick's family life. All three of the Adams are living in separate worlds. Nick's mother is lying in the room, blinds drawn, surrounded by Christian Science books.

Nick's father cleans his gun intently instead of having a meaningful conversation with his wife. Nick's father does not want to answer his wife's questions, and when he does, he lies to her. He assumes that she will not understand his reasoning for the argument he just had outside. In addition, his wife's religious demands for him to not lose his temper show that she does not want him to be a stereotypical aggressive and protective male.

Also, Christian Science religion does not believe in medicine, which means that she has no respect for her husband's work. Nick's father decides to go hunting, where he can express his masculinity. When Nick decides to go with him, Nick is also showing an interest in male to male interaction over male to female interaction with his mother. We see Nick at the end of the story, still calling his father "daddy" and wanting to follow him around. If the family would interact more, then it is probable that Nick would be able to develop more psychologically. He is still being treated like a little child, so he is still acting like one.

We next see Nick and his reactions to relationships. In "The End of Something" Nick breaks up with his girlfriend Marjorie. He expresses to her that he is bored with his life and that they cannot stay together. This shows that due to Nick's past, he is not ready for relationships with women.

He does not want to live his life in the traditional manner that Marjorie expects him to. Due to his lack of development, he cannot communicate and commit at this point in his life. It is also significant that the fish they are trying to catch will not bite onto the line. This signifies Nick trying to tell Marjorie that now is not a time for commitment. He does not want to get married, settle down, and give up his masculine life. The next interaction Nick has is with his friend Bill in "The Three Day Blow".

The two spend the entire time drinking while Nick questions his decision to break up with Marjorie. "The Three-Day Blow" can also represent a time in Nick's life when only the most important things in his life are necessary. For Nick and Bill, the important thing to remain is their masculinity, including their love of sports. For him to become a tough, manly man, Nick needs to "blow" his emotions about Marjorie out of his system. Bill tries to convince Nick that he made the right decision in not wanting to get married.

This is Nick's struggle to decide if he wants to be a "man's man", or a "family man". He is trying to decide what type of person he wants to become, and whether that life includes marriage, love, and domesticity. Instead of continuing to think this through, Nick and Bill decide to get completely drunk and go hunting. Nick is trying to escape from making major decisions in his life. We follow Nick in continuing his rite of passage in "The Battler". Through the earlier stories, Nick is growing up in his hometown, but while there, he does not really develop.

In this story he takes a journey which is a physical indication of his internal progress. This story signifies Nick in the war. He learns a little about life from being beat by the man on the train when he meets the crazy boxer, Ad Francis. Ad Francis offers several lessons for Nick. He is tough in the same way that Nick feels that he must be tough.

This toughness is part of the masculinity that Nick seems to be on the road to. However, Ad is crazy, and that craziness has come from a woman. As a result, Ad acts as a warning to Nick not to get too close to any women. If he does, he might end up dependent on her for money or crazy for love like Ad. As Nick grows up he needs to decide whether he will accept these ideas of manliness, which his father also seems to have tried to teach him earlier in life. We meet up with Nick again towards the end of the book in "Big Two-Hearted River: Part I".

This story is about Nick's return home to his old fishing ground after the war. In returning home, Nick is introduced to the issues a man must face after war. Nick finds his home burnt and abandoned. This represents the same feeling as several veterans returning home experience. It does not matter if their homes were literally demolished, they were all symbolically demolished. When soldiers return home after the war, they can never see a home as innocent and cheerful as it was before the war.

We also see Nick alone in this whole experience, since people that did not go to war cannot understand what he is going through. The second part of "Big Two-Hearted River" is a bit more light-hearted. We see Nick trying to enjoy life by fishing and camping. He sets up a small camp, and keeps telling himself that "It [is] a good camp" (147). Nick is trying to be happy about simply being alive. We see Nick in his final form of combat when he fights with the fish.

However, these battles are not violent like the battles he knew before now. We learn that Nick and the fish are the two hearts of the big river, making their battle bring them closer together rather than further apart. The reason the two can connect is because they are both male. Even after all that Nick has gone through, he still has not allowed females into his life. He still believes that there can be no unison with women in a masculine life. It is here when it is obvious that regardless of all that he has been through, Nick has still not completely accepted the way traditional society works.

He has shut out civilization and has begun the end of his life in solitude. Hemingway used many different emotions in this book to describe what people go through during war. Nick Adams is a character who never really finds peace in society. Instead, he finds contentment in solitude. Had Nick let women into his life and taken a risk of getting hurt, then he might have not spent the rest of his life fishing alone. Nick made the decision that he did not want the domestic life that Marjorie wanted.

Now he must spend his days reflecting on his life and the decisions that he made. Whether he is at peace with the decisions he made is questionable, but anything is better than being at war.