In Our Time By Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemmingway’s In Our Time is a collection of short stories that follows Nick Adams as he grows up during the World War I era in America. As a young journalist, Hemingway wrote mostly for the newspaper. During this time, he had to tell a story with less development of characters and plot points compared to traditional storytelling. This transformed the way he composes his story in a minimalistic style. Hemingway is known for using a style of writing called “The Iceberg Theory”; which is when the text gives just enough information for the reader to understand the story, but there is information purposely omitted. Readers use their own form of interpretations for what the characters in the story are thinking. During the conclusion of In

Nick gets off a train and heads off, back home to the woods of Michigan where he spent his time during childhood. After arriving, he begins to set up his tent and prepare his equipment for fishing. Joseph Flora concludes that “ He learned a great deal about the code of fishing and hunting from his father. These detail in the story is a link to Nick and his father. This is a part of the unstated Iceberg Theory” (Flora 52). In “Indian Camp” when Nick was a child he went on a boat with his father and “ felt like he couldn't die” (19). This was a happy memory for him and having this connection with his father and the lake is something he can always return to even if most other things in his life has

Nick was traumatized from moments in his life, these being witnessing the Indian woman giving birth, her husband’s suicide and the violent experiences of world war I. He does not want to think about the terrible things that he has experienced. This is why he wants to return to the woods by himself, to deal with these terrible memories. When he was fishing we learn that the largest trout can be only be caught at the bottom of the swamp. The trout is representative of his memories.The larger trouts are the most difficult to be caught; like most deeply repressed memories are the hardest to deal with. The hardest memories for Nick to deal with are repressed far away in his subconscious, just like the biggest trouts are only in the deepest part of the swamp. He is at battle with these memories and his past. He was able to catch the trout in the river because these trout represent his good memories of growing up. A happy memory was when he was on the boat with his father and “ felt like he couldn't die” (Hemingway 19). The story concludes with the narrator explaining “There were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp”(156). Meaning that Nick will continue to battle and deal with the suppressed memories and his psychological problems another time, but today is not that