After I finished In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway I was desperate for a connection. I felt that while reading the whole book, I was trying to find something that brought the book together as a whole. I knew that there wasn't going to be a obvious connection between all of the stories and chapters in the books but I felt that there was something significant about the Nick Adams stories. Through out the Nick Adams stories in this book, we see Nick change and in a way go through a rite of passage.
As we start the book, the second story we encounter is "Indian Camp." In that story, we see Nick as a young, innocent boy, that is until the end of the story. Even in this story, we see Nick evolve. Some of that innocence is stripped away. Nick starts asking his dad some deep questions about life and death. Even though his dad is responding in short answers as if trying to end the conversation, Nick continues on asking questions and thinking about it even though the conversation is over.
A few chapters later and we see an older Nick. This is a slightly more mature Nick than we have seen before, but he still ends up trouble. Nick is traveling around on the trains until he got kicked off by the brakeman that threw him off but not before giving him a black eye. This for me symbolized that Nick not found himself or a place for himself. It was as if he was traveling to find out who he was, rushing from place to place until he found that. Nick starts talking to Ad Francis and almost ends up in a fight with him, but he is rescued by Bugs who knocks Ad out. To me, this drove home the fact that Nick was still a child and needed protecting. He hasn't really learned how to take care of himself.
Finally in the last two stories, "Big Two-Hearted River Part 1" and "Big Two-Hearted River Part 2", we see Nick mature and become an adult. He has learned to slow down and enjoy life. He is able to make a nice, though temporary home for himself. He is alone and able to care for himself. He doesn't need anybody there to help him. For the first time we see Nick being able to take care of himself. We have seen Nick goes from a small innocent child to a man capable of taking care of himself without doubting himself.
I think Nick is a really interesting character because we see these presumably significant snippets of his life, but still by the end of In Our Time I didn't feel like I formed a connection to him or know who he really was. Perhaps Hemingway intended this to help us view Nick's experiences more objectively. But overall it was strange to read a book and not feel emotionally connected to such a central character.
ReplyDeleteWe might point to the parallel openings of "The Battler" and "Two-Hearted River" as one reflection of this coming-of-age process. As you mention, in the earlier story, Nick seems confused and inexperienced, "playing at" hobo life but clearly not being able to handle himself around "crazy" people like Ad and Bugs--and this is reflected in his "rookie mistake" getting tricked off the train by the brakeman. In the latter pair of stories, he exits the train deliberately and walks purposefully through a deserted and burned-out town to the river--completely solitary, and thoroughly capable.
ReplyDeleteI agree that I was yearning for a connection of some sort with this book -- both a personal connection between myself and the characters, and something broader to connect the stories in the book to each other. Nick's development is certainly something we see building throughout the book, but it's still difficult to pin down some sort of overarching "theme" (unless we want to talk about the whole idea of post-WWI disenchantment, which is certainly an integral part of the book, but it's often very subtle). What I struggled with the most was connecting personally to the characters. It was interesting to watch Nick grow up, but at least for me, he remained distant throughout.
ReplyDelete