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How does "Indian Camp" portray Nick Adams' coming of age compared to Jem Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird and Sylvia in "The White Heron"?
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Nick Adams' coming of age in "Indian Camp" involves confronting pain, death, and the complexity of life when he witnesses a difficult birth and a suicide. This experience shifts his perspective on life and death. In contrast, Jem Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird matures through witnessing racial injustice during Tom Robinson's trial, leading to his disillusionment. Sylvia in "The White Heron" undergoes a quieter transformation, gaining insight through her interactions with nature and the concept of death.
In "Indian Camp," Nick comes to understand that life can be bad as well as good. The birth of a baby is a happy occasion, but it does not mean there is an absence of pain. The mother screams during the difficult labor. Nick's father explains this to him:
What she is going through is called being in labor. The baby wants to be born and she wants it to be born. All her muscles are trying to get the baby born. That is what is happening when she screams.
Nick's father presents Nick with the facts. This is one introduction to understanding pain and how pain can be mixed into life. This lesson goes further when the father of the baby commits suicide. Nick's father tries to get Nick to leave, but it is too late. Nick sees the man's neck and the pool of blood. Nick...
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must confront the idea of death. His father was able to deliver the baby and keep the mother alive, but he could not save the father. A happy occasion has been clouded by sadness.
Hemingway clues us in to the change Nick goes through by describing their boat ride to the camp and their boat ride leaving. On the way there, "Nick lay back with his father's arms around him." On the way home, they are separated: "They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing."
In "Indian Camp," one of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, Nick's dad--a doctor--takes Nick with him to a camp so that he can help an Indian woman with a difficult delivery. Nick does not seem to be very enthusiastic about the whole task, but is used to his father's "mentoring" him. After a difficult C-section, Nick's dad successfully delivers the baby while saving the mother's life, but the baby's father (at some point during the crude operation) kills himself because of the horrid screams his wife emitted. Up until that point, Nick had not had much interest in what was going on, but he asks his father why the Indian man killed himself and later if it is difficult to die. Nick's father simply tells him that he doesn't think that it is hard to die, and Nick ponders that as they paddle away from the village. He thinks to himself that he is not going to die anytime soon.
Hemingway incorporates the theme of coming of age or losing one's innocence through Nick's having to witness the aftereffects of suicide and his uncle's reaction (he runs outside), and his dad's answers. Nick is no longer a young, disinterested boy; he sees how and why someone would choose to die and has a new perspective on what his dad does.
In regards to To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem has much the same attitude toward Atticus and his profession as Nick does to his dad. While Jem certainly respects his dad, until Tom Robinson's trial, he doesn't really see the value of what his dad does or how wise he truly is. After Atticus loses the trial, Jem is angry that life is not fair, especially for Tom and his family, and begins to question Atticus about the way the justice system works. Scout mentions that Jem is sullen and that he changed from being a typical boy who likes to shoot animals and creatures with his air rifle to one who doesn't even want to kill a bug. In general, the trial and the subsequent events cause Jem to be disillusioned with human nature and most of his towns' people.
In regards to Sylvia in "The White Heron," her coming of age is similar to the boys' but not quite so dramatic. For her, look at how she responds to death or the thought of death and what she learns from it.