indian camp
...hild, yet instead he wants him to represent the white man's desire to change a culture. First off, George passes out cigars to all the men,and then he stands by to watch as Doctor Adams performs the operation. These are both two things that in Uncle George's culture would be performed by the father of the child. Hemingway did not want us to assume that this meant that he was the actual father, but merely that Uncle George felt it necessary to act out such rituals for what he thought was a primitive race. The father, who lays in his bunk smoking a pipe, rejects the white man's idea of fatherhood, and through his suicide, Hemingway is attempting to show the gradual decline of a culture and the supplanting of one for another. Tanselle also makes a good point when he makes the connection between Uncle George remaining at the camp, while Nick and his father leave, with the white man's staying power upon the Indian's culture. I also agree with the themes that Tanselle points out in his essay, but I think he overlooked one of the most important elements of the story - the theme of masculinity. With characters like Doctor Adams and Uncle George, Hemingway introduces Nick into manhood. Of course, similar to much of Hemingway's work, Nick's introduction into manhood is a very distorted one. While childbirth is typically an extremely female act, in this story, instead of a natural childbirth, the baby is brought into the world by a Caesarian section. The woman plays no role in the matter. She is held down by the men, which shows Nick a very domineering order of gender roles. After the operation, Hemingway says the Doctor was “feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing room after a game.” The reference to football players is an obvious reference to masculinity and their jovial behavior lets the reader know that the Doctor and Uncle George show no respect for the mother or the father of the child. In this masculine atmosphere, the suicide of the Indian father, then, seems to be an example of a man acting in a feminine manner. They see the act of suicide as weak behavior, which they would not allow themselves to embody. Nick's father di...