In Our Time Nick Adam Character Analysis

A collection of short stories based in the early 20th century, In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway follows protagonist Nick Adam’s journey towards manhood, highlighting the individual experiences that most influenced his life. Written in the third-person, readers see Nick from an early age, the influence of his professional, smart, and morally sound father then obvious, and continue on through his young adult life. Each experience teaches Nick a lesson about life, and what it means to be a good, respectable man, like his father, who is a doctor, and with these, Nick develops a “code of living,” in an attempt to order and guide his life. Nick’s ambition to be like his father, yet remain his own man, centers on three main ideas that he adheres to:

Psychological maturity can be defined as “the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner,” and to Nick, the appropriate manner would be what his father would do. “The Indian Camp” discusses Father’s professionalism as well as his mental toughness, all in front of Nick. The doctor delivers the baby through difficulty, and afterwards, when he checked on the husband, only to find him dead, he has the immediate response to tell Nick’s Uncle George to “Take Nick out of the shanty,” and he handles the situation promptly (18). Nick, however, is stunned by this occurrence, unable to perceive or act after seeing the dead body, which portrays just how much Nick can learn from his father. In “The Three-Day Blow,” Nick and Bill display their immaturity through their attempt to be mature. The two playact as their fathers, discussing men’s topics like baseball, writing, praising their fathers, and later women, all while getting drunk, but they obviously over-do their efforts to be grown up and give hints at their immaturity. When passing by a mirror while retrieving alcohol from a pantry, Nick doesn’t

In “The Indian Camp,” Nick’s father shows a level of professionalism that Nick aims for, staying emotionless and calm while Nick struggles. When the woman is in pain delivering the baby, Nick asks, “Daddy, can’t you giver her something to make her stop screaming?” and his father replies, “her screams are not important. I don’t hear them because they are not important” (16). Tuning out the woman and performing his job, Nick’s father acts professionally while Nick is unable to perform his small task of paying attention. Nick cannot bear to look when his father is doing stitching, and only watches the birth out of respect for his father. The doctor also shows a great example of practicality in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” when he feels threatened by the logger. The logger questions his integrity and his word, but is also a considerably larger person who is prone to get into fights, “[The logger] was a big man. He knew how big a man he was. He like to get into fights. He was happy” (25). Knowing this, Nick’s father backs off angrily, yet intelligently, and later, when he is considering going after the man with his shotgun, he wisely chooses to leave it alone, setting a great example for his son. In a later story, “The Battler,” Nick has a chance to prove his own practicality. This story tells of Nick’s travels alone