Reality vs. Fantasy: Hemingway's Influence in an Increasingly Digital World

By Shaane Syed, Storyboard Project

The arrival of the internet has created a magnitude of ease and convenience to the average person; however, it has also caused an enormity of distress to literature.  Timeless classic texts are butchered by fan web-sites, satirists, or conspiracy theorists all over the web, while more unheard of pieces, many equal in value and content to the classics, are lost in the midst.  Short stories, such as those by F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, are loosely remembered, as they are buried in the shadows of The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises.  The Storyboard Project Team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, however, demonstrates the importance of “Indian Camp,” a short story written in 1924 by Ernest Hemingway, and how a close exploration of text can produce a bridge between the World Wide Web and little-known, but culturally significant, literature. The university project opens the door to further research in correlation with analysis of the story, including the resemblance of its main character, Nick Adams, to Hemingway himself, both in experience and in psychology.  When “Indian Camp” is presented upon a technological, internet database, it becomes much more relevant in faster, modern society; not only is textual content closely dissected, but numerous connections to the story and to Hemingway himself can be drawn from even the most obscure sources.  Two separate entities created by the presentation of “Indian Camp” upon a web-interface include its relevance to modernization of literature, as well as the classical analysis of the text provided by the Storyboard Project Team.

The first entity examined through the internet is the process of development, and what its speed does in accordance with literature.  Convenience has its consequences: it is true that one can now find the entirety of a novel such as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn just by visiting a web-site; it is also true, though, that the overall effect of the novel is lost among internet trends such as satirical spin-off stories and jokes.  Twain’s classic language is forgotten and becomes irrelevant, as “interpretation” and “analysis” become loose terms with little to no intellectual meaning.  Short stories, however, are ignored altogether, by scholars and fans alike.  With their creation of a web-site dedicated to the close analysis of “Indian Camp,” the Storyboard Project Team at the University of California, Santa Barbara hopes to enhance intellectual interest in short stories and to bring a better understanding, by readers, to the depth of their content.  The uniform structure and storyboard-appearance of the site draw the eye and the mind toward the subject matter, thus modernizing the classic essay-style interpretation of literature. 

The university project further revolutionizes the traditional “essay” by using analysis as a gateway to strengthen the use of research and outside resources to better understand literature and its context.  By interpreting both the characters and the actions of the characters, the reader is able to devise his own opinion as to the text’s meaning and significance, and thus able to fully appreciate the effect of the literature.  The web-site is also a simple and effective way to engage the reader, as it is an interactive, visual page, connecting analyses with photographs and further reading from other authors, journalists, and students.

Not only does the internet act as a gateway to free interpretation, but it serves as a devise to connect outside resources and bring them together on one web-site at which others can view and practically utilize.  The web page created by the team at the University of California, Santa Barbara brings together scholarly articles and essays for interested readers to examine, compare and contrast, or even separately interpret and write about.  The articles draw conclusions upon and connections to both the literary work and to Hemingway himself, including his resemblance to Nick Adams.  For example, in an article entitled, “Hemingway and the Beasts,” Norwegian writer Jens Bjorneboe compares the experiences of the character to the author.  He emphasizes Hemingway’s frequent use of “cruelty, violence and pain” as the major topics of discussion and prevalence to his stories.

Bjorneboe persuasively argues that Hemingway’s writing on hunting, for example, correlates to his thoughts and memories of his father and war, including that Hemingway’s “battle consists of conquering dread,” and that “fear of death or fear of life—” as two forms of dread (Bjorneboe).  In “Indian Camp,” Hemingway focuses on Nick’s inability to grasp the notion of pain, and of death.  It is in Nick’s ignorance that Bjorneboe connects Hemingway to the character, emphasizing their fear toward pain; the psychology of the boy and the author, according to Bjorneboe, is strikingly similar.  In the text of “Indian Camp,” Nick asks several vulnerable questions, including: “Do many men kill themselves?” and, “Is dying hard?” (Hemingway).  The obvious answer to both of these questions is, of course, “Yes,” but Nick’s father denies it.  Nick, though, in his ignorance, chooses to believe his father and by the end of the story truly feels, as Hemingway states, “quite sure that he would never die.”  Again, this irrational mindset indicates Hemingway’s own distorted psychology and his fear of pain and death. 

The Storyboard Project Team web page presents additional resources to be utilized by readers in accordance with Bjorneboe’s essay interpretation of Hemingway’s connection to his characters and to his stories.  A remarkable number of influences taken from the web-site can be used to come to a myriad of conclusions regarding Hemingway, “Indian Camp,” or the combination of the two.  The web-site then becomes productive and relevant to the fast-paced internet society, and is therefore useful.  Because the web-site is functional, obscure pieces of literature such as “Indian Camp” come to be prevalent and popular in modern culture. 

The second entity thoroughly explored by the Storyboard Project Team is that of the classical approach to analysis, closely resembling a traditional essay.  The web-site provides outside resources for the purpose of adding interest and background information to the original text of Hemingway’s story.  Its priority, however, is to deeply analyze “Indian Camp” and to observe the possibility of multiple interpretations of the story.  The site is split into eight sections, each containing pieces of plot summary, character analysis, and theme discussion, all to be brought together so the reader can form an opinion of Hemingway’s short, but rich, words.

“Indian Camp” follows the experience of Nick Adams and his psychology when, for the first time, he witnesses a woman giving birth.  The tale is that of coming of age for the boy, but also that of a test; Nick’s maturity level is tested as his limits are pushed, from the time he asks where he is going to his final thoughts reflecting his own mortality.  Throughout the story, Hemingway uses language to emphasize Nick’s vulnerability, and his inability to accept certain, natural, factors of life.  Within these qualities Hemingway buries his own psychology, so as to show Nick as a reflection of Hemingway’s boyhood memories.

In the beginning of “Indian Camp,” Nick, Dr. Adams and George are already well on their way toward the lake in order to cross into the Indian camp.  Even then, Nick fails to observe and know his surroundings; only when the men were close to the opposite shore did Nick ask where they were going.  His maturity level is not that of a normal, curious young boy, but of one who is apathetic and unconcerned with division and unfamiliarity.  The way in which Dr. Adams responds to his son, by not using even the simplest of verbs such as “is,” also demonstrates the point that Nick’s capacity to learn and to understand is extremely low.  The boy’s separation should come as quite obvious to him, but that it does not is Hemingway’s use of subtlety to divulge the smallest bit of Nick’s complicated psychology.

The lake, too, represents both the physical and the ethereal separation between the Indians and the Adams group, but primarily that between the Indians and Nick.  Though Hemingway does not outwardly disclose or reflect upon Nick’s observations, or lack thereof, the boy’s indifference toward his destination characterizes his feeling of superiority.  He disregards the need of the Indians: after his father tells him an Indian woman is “very sick,” Nick replies, simply, “Oh.”  He lacks sensitivity toward and interest in the situation, two qualities which should have been inherent in a normal eight year-old boy, full of life and energy, and free of worry or anxiety. 

Hemingway uses Nick as a way to portray his own memories as he reflects upon his experiences when he was young.  Though he may have been a carefree young boy at the time, he cannot help but remember with his adult mind in which would, indeed, carry woeful and horrific memories of pain and suffering.  Therefore, Nick is shown partly as a boy and partly as a man, with questions of vulnerability and ignorance but thoughts of anxiety.  Hemingway utilizes his character to create an interesting take on fantasy vs. reality: What, within “Indian Camp,” is autobiographical, and what is truly fiction?

Hemingway proceeds to parallel his own fears with Nick and his attitude toward the situation with the Indian woman giving birth.  Dr. Adams attempts to warn Nick of her discomfort when he explains that:

“What [the woman] 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 is happening when she screams."

This explanation is meant to calm Nick and to prevent him from becoming scared of the situation at hand, implying that Dr. Adams is aware of Nick’s uneasiness.  Because of his fears, though, Nick does not believe his father at first, which makes him even more anxious when he hears her piercing cries. 

Nick cannot stand the thought of suffering, and Hemingway portrays him as troubled not with the process of birth itself, but instead with the woman’s screaming as she writhes in pain.  The boy is unable to even look at the woman because he realizes she is in agony.  He then begs his father to give her some sort of medicine or anesthetic, not to stop her pain, but her screaming.  His anxiousness is similar to a grown man’s, and can therefore be linked to Hemingway’s own feelings.  One would imagine a young boy to be concerned that an adult, a mother, is wounded and is suffering, and that he would want to help her in any way possible, especially because his father is a doctor.  Instead, his motives are selfish.  Nick’s only thoughts are surrounded by his desire for the Indian woman to stop screaming because he, and he alone, is uncomfortable by it.

Hemingway’s personal feelings creep up on Nick throughout the remainder of “Indian Camp,” particularly when he is in plain view of the father of the child, who had just committed suicide.  Hemingway distinctively does not mention Nick’s reaction to the body, but just that he can see the slit throat and the pool of blood from where he is standing.  By leaving Nick’s reaction toward an obviously painful death to the imagination, Hemingway emphasizes his shock and horror.  The boy says nothing; Hemingway’s own terror is most clearly demonstrated in silence.

Nick’s final reflections are the exact opposite of what they should be.  After observing painful life through the Indian woman’s anesthetic-free labor, and also agonizing death through physically viewing a man’s bloody, slit throat, the boy still chooses to believe that he “would never die,” and is remarkably sure of himself.  Though he asks important questions before he reaches his conclusion, such as whether or not it hurts to die, he remains in incredulity that such pain could come to him.  His fear has taken over his sense of reality, and he ends his experience with less maturity and knowledge than with which he begins.  Hemingway leaves Nick in denial because the author himself cannot accept that there is pain in both life, such as the process of giving birth, and in death.  In the end, the boy is still separated; but, instead of being disconnected by superiority, Nick is detached from reality at his desperate attempt to live in fantasy.

The link between reality and fantasy portrayed by Hemingway is similar to the relationship between text and digital reality.  A written text is tangible, legible, and physical.  The web interface on which the Storyboard Project Team at the University of California, Santa Barbara dedicates a representation of “Indian Camp” is not tangible, nor physical, but is certainly legible.  With the web page, a reader is able to establish the functionality of a database such as the one created by the university team in order to maximize productivity.  The physical text of “Indian Camp” can be read thoroughly in book form and then analyzed and studied in web-form by using the project’s web-site.  Multiple objectives and theories can be explored while maintaining a scholarly fashion.  The efficiency and effectiveness of the web-site draws upon innovation, and the notion that such ways of interpretation could re-invent and revolutionize the traditional essay form.  Classical processes of analysis, however, are the basis of the web page dedicated to Hemingway’s “Indian Camp.” The site is a modern approach to the traditional form of thoughtful, in-depth examination of great literature.

 

Works Cited

1.      Hemingway, Ernest.  "Indian Camp." 1924.  15 March 2008. 

 <http://nbu.bg/webs/amb/american/4/hemingway/camp.htm>

2.    Bjorneboe, Jens.  "Hemingway and the Beasts." 1955.

            16 March 2008.  <http://home.att.net/~emurer/texts/hemingwy.htm>