Hemingway's Primitivism and "Indian Camp"

Hemingway's "Indian Camp" (1924)-the first story in his first trade book and always one of his favorites -has been subjected to a wide variety of interpretations, ranging from the obvious to the absurd, by critics who have recognized its power and struggled with its meaning. The story contains two shocking incidents: the doctor performs a Caesarean operation with a jackknife but without anesthetic, and the husband silently commits suicide. At least one critic has sensed that the suicide seems gratuitous-"in the context of the situation as given, it is too extreme an action"2-but did not attempt to explain the Indian's behavior. My own interpretation, based on Hemingway's attitude to primitive people and on his knowledge of anthropology, explains the most difficult aspects of the story: why the husband remains in the bunk of the shanty during the two days his wife has been screaming, and why he does not leave the room if he cannot bear her agonizing pain and shrieks. Despite his badly cut foot, he could have limped or been carried out of range of the screams, if he had wished to, and joined the other men. "Indian Camp" reflects Hemingway's ambiguous attitude to primitivism and shows his notable success in portraying the primitive. The interpretations of the story reveal the limitations of New Critical readings and of Hemingway criticism during the last thirty-five years. The obvious explanation of the Indian's suicide is provided by the doctor in the story-"He couldn't stand things, I guess"3-and has been dutifully repeated by more than twenty critics from 1951 to 1983.4 Other students of the story, bored with the manifest simplicity of this interpretation, have strained for variant readings but offered little more than subjective opinions. George Hemphill (1949) tersely blames the