Indian Camp

by

Ernest Hemingway

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Indian Camp Quotes

Inside on a wooden bunk lay a young Indian woman. She had been trying to have her baby for two days. All the old women in the camp had been helping her. The men had moved off up the road to sit in the dark and smoke out of range of the noise she made. She screamed just as Nick and the two Indians followed his father and Uncle George into the shanty.

Related Characters: Nick Adams, Nick’s Father, The Indian Woman, Uncle George
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 67
Explanation and Analysis:

“Listen to me. What she is going through is called being in labor. The baby wants to be born and she wants it to be born. All her muscles are trying to get the baby born. That is what happening when she screams.”

Related Characters: Nick’s Father (speaker), Nick Adams, The Indian Woman
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

“Oh, Daddy, can’t you give her something to make her stop screaming?” asked Nick.

“No. I haven’t any anesthetic,” his father said. “But her screams are not important. I don’t hear them because they are not important.”

Related Characters: Nick Adams (speaker), Nick’s Father (speaker), The Indian Woman
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

“Those must boil,” he said, and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap he had brought from the camp. Nick watched his father’s hand scrubbing each other with the soap. While his father washed his hands very carefully and thoroughly, he talked.

Related Characters: Nick’s Father (speaker), Nick Adams
Related Symbols: Water
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

Later when he started to operate Uncle George and three Indian men held the woman still. She bit Uncle George on the arm and Uncle George said, “Damn squaw bitch!” and the young Indian who had rowed Uncle George over laughed at him.

Related Characters: Uncle George (speaker), The Indian Woman
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

“Now,” his father said, “there’s some stitches to put in. You can watch this or not, Nick, just as you like. I’m going to sew the incision I made.”

Nick did not watch. His curiosity had been gone for a long time.

Related Characters: Nick’s Father (speaker), Nick Adams
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

He was feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing room after a game.

“That’s one for the medical journal, George,” he said. “Doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders.”

Uncle George was standing against the wall, looking at his arm.

“Oh, you’re a great man, all right,” he said.

Related Characters: Nick’s Father (speaker), Uncle George (speaker)
Related Symbols: Knives, Axes, and Razor Blades
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

“Ought to have a look at the proud father. They’re usually the worst suffers in these little affairs,” the doctor said. “I must say he took it all pretty quietly.”[…]

The Indian lay with his face toward the wall. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.

Related Characters: Nick’s Father (speaker), The Indian Woman’s Husband
Related Symbols: Knives, Axes, and Razor Blades
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

“Why did he kill himself, Daddy?”

“I don’t know, Nick. He couldn’t stand things, I guess.”

[…]

“Is dying hard, Daddy?”

“No, I think it’s pretty easy Nick. It all depends.”

Related Characters: Nick Adams (speaker), Nick’s Father (speaker), The Indian Woman’s Husband
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:

They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills […] In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.

Related Characters: Nick Adams, Nick’s Father
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
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