A Study Of The Patients In Hemingway's In Our Time

It is well known that In Our Time, the first short story collection of Ernest Hemingway, is full of sick and injured characters; illness can be regarded as a central feature of those stories, which deserves a systematic scholastic study. Thus, focusing on Nick Adams, one of the most important characters in this collection, the present thesis purports, in an organized way, to diagnose the symptoms of the patients, to investigate the possible causes, and to explore feasible therapies.Chapter One deals with the criticism on In Our Time, which is followed by a survey on Nick Adams, and a sketch of the present thesis.Chapter Two diagnoses the symptoms of the patients in the collection. Traumatized by physical injuries in the Great War, Nick Adams struggles with anxiety at the same time. His language is pathologically repetitious and compulsively excessive. While Harold Krebs, another veteran is subject to a more figurative disease with the symptoms of inertness and ambivalence toward women. In this chapter, diagnoses will be conducted on some other patients as well.Chapter Three probes two possible sources of the patients' symptoms: individual and social. As a young boy, Nick is horrified by the devastating trauma of Caesarian and the suicide of the Indian husband in "Indian Camp". Besides, the present thesis will consider two traumatic childhood incidents (two fires) in "Now I Lay Me", which has a close relationship with the emotional estrangement between his parents. While those traumas are largely submerged beneath consciousness during boyhood, they are set off by Nick's wartime wounding at Faosalta. Haunted by his childhood psychic traumas, of course, the anxiety that Nick exhibits also stems from his war experience. The war wounding has not only changed how Nick acts but has also changed who Nick is. It makes Nick lose his personal identity and unable to secure a stable sense of self. Without an explicit stable self, he is more anxious than ever.Chapter Four expounds a possible therapy prescribed by Hemingway. The story...