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Nick Adams And The Battler Essay

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The chronological first story of Nick Adams in The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway, “The Battler” deals with the stumbled upon interaction between Nick and two ex-criminals turned best friends, Ad and Bugs. Through each character’s dialogue, the reader sees three different men and what society's idea of ‘manhood’ has done to them. Each character is different. Nick is at the beginning of his journey to discover how this defines him, and both Ad and Bugs are older men whom masculinity has potentially ruined them, especially for the ex-fighter Ad. Out of the three men in “The Battler”, the character with the most up front character history and development is Ad Francis, former Boxing champion and now mentally-crazed hobo. When young Nick Adams meets Ad, he seems to describe their appearances in similar ways: Nick, having just been given a black eye, and Ad whose face is slightly misshapen (49). Through their conversation and Nick’s dialogue with Bugs, Ad’s appearance to Nick changes from that of a man similar to him to that of a crazed one. This is obvious when Nick goes from comparing them to referring to Ad as “the little man” (54). A theme that is present in Ad’s story is likely a reflection of Hemingway’s own battle with the societal ideals of …show more content…

Hemingway refers to Bugs in three ways: Bugs, Negro, and nigger. While the difference in Nick’s thoughts towards the man is unexplained, it could be in line with the theme of the pressures to be masculine because the few times Hemingway, through Nick’s narration, refers to Bugs as ‘nigger’, it is when Bugs has submitted his tone in a softer voice to try to speak to Ad in a more gentle tone, as well as when Nick is leaving and Bugs is saying goodbye. This shows what becomes a recurring theme in The Nick Adams Stories which is Nick’s complicated ideas of masculinity and how it changes over

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