Indian Camp by Ernest Hemingway is a classic short story underlining the importance of rites of passage in humans’ lives, such as childbirth, fear of death, pain, life experiences, and so on. The story features Hemingway’s favourite character that often appears in his short stories: Nick Adam, most of these stories have been featured in ‘Our Time’ collection and bear resemblance to the events that occurred in his own life. By title it may sound that it is a military or war story. In fact, an initiation story. Doctor Adams is being called to an Indian camp to help a woman deliver a baby. Well before dawn doctor Adams along with his brother, George, and his son Nick, cross the Michigan Lake with two Indian natives. The woman lying in a lower bunker bed has been suffering terrific labour pain for two days, and isn’t able to deliver the baby. There Adams finds that the baby is in breech position; hence he operates on the woman with a non-surgical knife, without any anaesthetic....
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