Nick followed his father to an Indian camp to witness his father help a women through childbirth. At first glance “Indian Camp” seems to be about a boy’s right of passage experience, as he witnesses a child’s birth. This beautiful feminine act is however described through masculine eyes, and therefore is more about the father’s development than it is about Nick’s or the Indian woman.
But this story also unarguably represents an initiation, or a loss of innocence for Nick. When the “young Indian stopped and blew out his lantern”. The literal shift from lightness to darkness signals the metaphorical separation for Nick.He is no longer sitting in his comfort zone. From the beginning of the story, the difference between Nick as a young boy and Nick’s father as a grown man is defined by how they react to the scene of suffering and violence that surrounds them as the young Indian woman painfully struggles during labor.
As soon as the story begins we are aware of Nick’s father’s development. He is there on a mission. His purpose is not only to help, but to show his son what he does and to teach him about life. It is almost as if Nick’s father is using the woman and her baby to prove something.
He is trying to prove his masculinity to his son, and he wants to show that he has control of the lives of the Indian woman and her baby. Nick’s father acts stern and in control. For example, he “ordered some water to be put on the stove” and makes preparations for the pending operation “carefully and thoroughly”. At the same time explaining the woman’s condition to Nick in a detached, almost scientific and systematic tone. Nick, on the other hand, lacks active conscious knowledge or awareness and is frustrated by the chaos surrounding him. He asks his father where they are going on the way over to the Indian camp.
And he responds pleadingly to the woman’s screams “Oh daddy, can’t you give her something to make her stop screaming? ”. Which illustrates his empathy for the woman’s pain and his supposedly naive character. Nick’s father responds coldly “I don’t hear her screams because they’re not important”. This establishes Nick’s father as the model of masculine stoicism. Which is here defined by one’s ability to ignore the pain of others, specifically outlined “others” such as women and minorities. Nick’s obvious discomfort towards the woman’s suffering characterizes him as emotional, empathetic, and therefore hildlike as opposed to his father’s unresponsive masculinity.
These differences in reaction to suffering, emphasizes the wipe gap between childhood and manhood. That lies in the ability focus on self-preservation and to reject the pain of others. Nick’s father and Uncle George demonstrate racism and sexism towards the Indian characters. The story suggests that Nick learns it is necessary to degrade victims in order to avoid becoming associated with them. When Nick’s father claims that the woman’s screams “are not important”.
He symbolically disregards the pain of women and Native Americans as meaningless.Also, the story that is “supposedly” about a woman giving birth includes no dialogue from the woman herself, but frequently mentions her screaming profusely. This emphasizes her role as an object of suffering. This makes a statement about femininity or womanhood in general “she is wordless and unimportant, the only noise she makes reflects the pain of her very female-specific condition”. Uncle George’s cry of “damn squaw bitch” directed at the Indian woman, manages to contain terms of both racist and disrespect towards women in one short slur.
Nick’s father’s boastful attitude when he gloats about “doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with a nine-foot, tapered gut leaders”. This implies racism because this makes the reader wonder, whether he would have used such improper materials and then bragged about it on a white lady. And sexism because he treats the pregnant woman’s traumatic situation, as a mere medical conquest. He is described as “exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing room after a game”.
This emphasizes that he has detached himself from the extreme agony of the scene to the extent that he is able to relish in the crudeness of it with pleasure. Nick, on the other hand, has clearly been bothered by the event. He is “looking away so as not to see what his father was doing” during the operation, “didn’t look” and “did not watch” as his father made the incision. He also says that “his curiosity had been gone for a long time”. This shows his uncomfortable avoidance of the situation contrasts strongly with his father’s noisy bragging.That also further illustrates the distinction between childhood empathy with suffering and adult masculine detachment to it.
The matter of witnessing a death is not one that can be dealt with easily, the fact that the Indian man committed suicide was a memory that would haunt Nick for the rest of his life. Nick faced a choice at the beginning of the story: he can either empathize with the suffering woman and “curse himself with a death full endless empathy” or identify with his coldly rational father and forever lose his “capacity for humanity”.To empathize with the woman is portrayed as the childish reaction, as Nick does this at the beginning of the story before he has experienced the violent situation. To reject her suffering and rise above it is portrayed as the masculine, stoic, adult reaction. This is portrayed by Nick’s father by saying that “her screams do not matter” and gloating about his medical performance after the operation. Then after viewing his father and Uncle George’s objectification of the woman based on her gender and race, Nick slowly makes his decision to side with his father.
In the end of the story he demonstrates the feeling of triumph and invincibility he gains from ignoring the woman’s suffering, when he says “he felt quite sure that he would never die”. Thus showing the characters’ perceptions of masculinity are informed by their reactions to the suffering of those around them. But what twists my story’s first interpretation is the story never states that Nick’s father, Nick and Uncle George are Caucasian. Neither does it say they are related, but the reader can assume this due to the use of "Uncle" with Georges name.We could also assume that all three of these characters are also Indians.
Maybe they came across the river because they belonged to a separate tribe nearby. Based on this assumption, the entire story changes. Uncle George calling the biting and laboring woman a "Damn Squaw bitch! " may now be acceptable, in terms of it not being directly racist anymore. The story doesn't say or show any sign that the guides objected to Uncle George's insult. If Nick and Nick's father are of the Indian dissent, could this explain why Nick's father has limited equipment or no anesthetic with him?Native Americans don't always agree to modern society technologies.
Normally a Native American's faith is very strong. Could it be that this laboring woman's faith was to be used as anesthetic? Perhaps Nick's father may have not been able to afford such luxuries as scalpels, sponges and other medical instruments. The reader could conclude that Nick's father had no means to pay for equipment or anesthetic. If Nick's father was a middle to upper-class person, then he would have had these items.
Fishing is obviously one of Nick's father's ordinary-personal hobbies.One way this is illustrated is by Nick's father performing surgery with a jack knife similar to gutting a fish. Nick's father also sews with "nine-foot, tapered gut leaders". Another similarity to fishing may be the fact that Nick's father rows the boat back home, much like one would after a long day of fishing. Where did the guides and uncle George go? And why are they not rowing Nick and Nick's father home? If Nick and Nick's father were visitors or white men, wouldn’t the guides take them back across the river? It is Possible that Nick's father was a regular human but liked to fish and was also the village doctor.
