This paper analyzes the fictional character Nick Adams across two of Ernest Hemingway's short stories — "Indian Camp" and "The Big Two-Hearted River, Parts 1 and 2" — to explore Nick's gradual transition from a naive participant in modern society to an individual who finds meaning through isolation and communion with nature. The paper argues that Hemingway uses Nick as his alter ego to critique materialism and the spiritual emptiness of twentieth-century modernity, positing that true human progress requires a return to one's natural origins. Drawing on close textual analysis, the discussion traces Nick's psychological and philosophical development, from his uncomfortable encounter with life and death in "Indian Camp" to his quiet contentment in the wilderness of "Big Two-Hearted River."
This paper demonstrates character-based close reading as an analytical method. Rather than surveying themes broadly, the author anchors every argument in the behavior, thoughts, and dialogue of a single fictional character, using Nick Adams as a lens through which larger cultural and philosophical claims about modernity and nature become legible. This is a useful technique for literary essays that aim to balance textual specificity with thematic scope.
The paper opens with biographical and thematic context for Hemingway and Nick Adams, then states its thesis. It proceeds chronologically through the two stories, first examining "Indian Camp" for Nick's naivety and awakening to mortality, then analyzing "Big Two-Hearted River" for his mature embrace of solitude and simplicity. A brief interpretive section addresses the symbolism of contentment before a short conclusion reframes Nick's isolation as a positive, instructive model rather than a withdrawal from society.
Ernest Hemingway, acclaimed American novelist and short story writer, established his niche in the world of literature by creating works that center on the interaction between nature and human society. Apart from his famous novels For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway is also known for his series of short stories featuring the fictional character Nick Adams.
Nick Adams is characterized as Hemingway's "alter ego," serving as a mirror of the writer and reflecting his sentiments and thoughts about life — especially when contemplating the social changes brought about by the emergence and development of the twentieth century. Nick, as a fictional character, is a free spirit who communes with nature and does so with great happiness, quite contrary to the "modern man" of the twentieth century. Hemingway's alter ego is characterized as an individual who prefers isolation and interaction with nature over involvement in the materialist world of modern human society.
This paper provides a discussion and analysis of Nick Adams as the antithesis of the modern man in the twentieth century — an individual who prefers to isolate himself from society and commune with nature instead. Drawing on the short stories "Indian Camp" and "The Big Two-Hearted River, Parts 1 and 2," the transition of Nick from a modern to a more "traditional" individual is illustrated as Hemingway's reaction to the prevalence of materialism and the triviality of contemporary human society. This paper posits that through Nick Adams, Hemingway tries to convey the importance of returning to the true nature of humans, which, through Nick's example, means communing with nature. This argument reflects an important thought by Hemingway: modernism, for him, is a return to the natural order of things — a re-discovery of human origins — so that society may progress not only materially but spiritually as well, "spirituality" here encompassing personal dimensions such as the physical, emotional, mental, and moral self.
It is essential to discuss the characterization Hemingway uses for Nick in "Indian Camp," since it is one of the first short stories illustrating the character in his most naive, "modern" self. In "Indian Camp," Nick is initially an individual not yet exposed to the natural processes of life, as exemplified by his uncomfortable witnessing of an Indian woman's labor and childbirth. He also acts as a subservient figure — unfamiliar with, yet trying to learn about, the important events that shape people's lives, particularly those of the Indian community around him.
Further into the story, Hemingway writes, "Nick did not watch. His curiosity has been gone for a long time" (Hemingway, 1995: 93). This statement arises from an extraordinary experience: Nick witnesses life and death simultaneously. Life arrives with the child born after the Indian woman successfully delivers her son. Death follows when her husband, unable to bear witnessing his wife's difficult labor, commits suicide by slashing his throat with a razor.
Nick's uncomfortable outlook about labor and childbirth reveals his naivety about real life in the real world. At the same time, however, he becomes desensitized to death having witnessed the Indian man's suicide. Nick's concluding thought — that "he felt quite sure that he would never die" — functions as a catalyst, a turning point at which he begins to achieve a form of enlightenment, as the succeeding sections will show (95).
Hemingway's alter ego has come a long way by the time "Big Two-Hearted River" was written. Nick, contrary to his naive personality in "Indian Camp," has evolved to become somewhat reminiscent of Henry David Thoreau, isolating himself from the urban landscape of human society and retreating into the primitive, natural environment of the forest. Where once he was an individual trying to fathom the importance of life and death, Nick in "Big Two-Hearted River" achieves understanding and wisdom through nature. As he travels into the town of Seney, Hemingway symbolically illustrates Nick's journey as a gradual retreat from human society — his back turned to civilization, and nature waiting ahead of him (209–210).
"There was something mysterious and homelike. Nick was happy… He had not been unhappy all day" (215). The author's illustration of Nick's candid feelings while communing with nature tells readers how naturally suited Nick is to the wild — and, by extension, how naturally suited all humans are to nature. Nick's happiness despite the absence of material comfort in the forest shows that modern people like him can live and thrive with nature simply because humans are one with it, and indeed came from it.
Perhaps the only reminder Nick carries of his previous life as a modern man is the canned food he brings on his trip; eating beans and spaghetti and drinking coffee in the forest seems paradoxical, even faintly comic, given the environment he inhabits (215–216). Furthermore, his thoughts about his friend Hopkins reflect how thoroughly he is turning his back on modern society. Hopkins, representing the successful man of the twentieth century, has vanished from Nick's life — Nick "never saw him again" (217).
In sum, Nick's retreat from modern society is not an explicit suggestion by Hemingway to isolate oneself from society. Rather, people must learn to search for their true selves in order to attain happiness and contentment. It is only in finding happiness and contentment that humans can fully progress in life — an achievement that has not been accomplished or fulfilled despite the seemingly complete nature of the materialist modern society we inhabit today.
You’re 77% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 1 section.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.