Italian soldiers, circa 1916.
"Then you ought to get married, Signor Tenente. Then you wouldn't worry."
"I don't know." (151)
As I said in class on the first day of the term, 19 year old Hemingway served as a Red Cross ambulance driver on the Italian front in the First World War. The Italians were part of the Allied Powers—Great Britain, France, Russia, and ultimately the Unites States—fighting the Central Powers—Germany and Austria-Hungary, and later The Ottoman Empire. On the Italian front, the conflict was primarily with Austria-Hungary. Ernest Hemingway was delivering chocolate and cigarettes to troops at the front when a mortar shell exploded nearby. His legs were peppered with metal shrapnel.
As reported in the Hemingway Resource Center (http://www.lostgeneration.com/ww1.htm):
He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valor with the official Italian citation reading: "Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated." Hemingway described his injuries to a friend of his: "There was one of those big noises you sometimes hear at the front. I died then. I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body, like you'd pull a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner. It flew all around and then came back and went in again and I wasn't dead any more."
This was the seminal experience in Hemingway's life. It became the subject of his second and third novels and the center of several of his stories (the Nick Adams ones we will read). Hemingway became a journalist after the war and covered several armed conflicts, primarily the Greco-Turkish War; he went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and as a forty-something writer-turned-war-correspondent he went to Europe in World War Two.
So:
1. Your reaction to "Now I Lay Me"? What moment or image stayed with you? Quote in your response.
2. How wounded is Nick here? And how do we know this? Pick one detail that shows what's happened to him. Try to not repeat what others write.
3. As in all of the stories we've read, there are mysteries to this story. Why Nick won't use salamanders or crickets as bait; the particular memory he has of home and his mother and father; why he is so unreceptive to his orderly John's urging him to get married. Emma C. and Matthew: write about the significance of why he won't use the lizards and crickets for bait. Mary and Nicholas and Chloe: write about why he uses the story of Nick's parents—how does it fit in this story; and Caroline, Isaiah, and Jack: why not get married? Stick to the story, folks.
We'll see everyone tomorrow.
1. “Now I Lay Me” was a rather slow story, but the gradual rise and fall of the action in the story seemed representative of Nick and his thoughts. When Nick is talking to John, John asks, “You got anything on your mind?” (151), and Nick responds, “No, John, I don’t think so” (151). This particular exchange made me think that Nick is puttering through life rather than actually living it the way he used to. In class, we said that Nick is more of an outsider that has things happen to him, and I feel that his experience caused him to be even more submissive and, in a sense, trapped.
ReplyDelete2. Nick is very wounded; he’s traumatized. In this particular story, Hemingway writes about religion, and Nick uses prayer as an escape from thinking. He lays awake at night to pray for every person he knew, possibly praying that they would not have to experience what he has.
3. The anecdote about Nick’s parents uses fire and the arrowheads as symbols. When Doc Adams retrieves the arrowheads from the fire, he says, “‘The best arrowheads went all to pieces’ (148),” which appears to be what Nick is experiencing because he nearly got blown up. The anecdote also contrasts with the next segment of the story where John argues that marriage is wonderful. However, in the anecdote, Mrs. Adams destroyed objects that gave Doc Adams joy, and there seems to be no symbol of reconciliation.
1. This story is much more complex than the others we've read and it elicits a lot of unanswerable questions. I like the story because of the detail and its dubious meaning. In addition, the title instantly gave me doubts about the optimism of the story; the traditional bedtime prayer starting with “Now I lay me down to sleep…” is a very bleak rhyme. Present in the verse is talk of dying while sleeping and a plea that the Lord takes and keeps one’s soul while this happens. I connected with this story as soon as I read the title, for my mom used to recite the rhyme to me before I went to bed as a child.
ReplyDelete2. Nick is wounded, but even more so mentally. He finds himself repeating the same stories and visuals in his head over and over for hours and still manages to have the same phobia of the dark as a young child. However, this fear is looming and hideous; Nick is petrified into staying awake by the idea of his soul leaving his body in the dark.
3. The sequences Nick thinks about at night are things he can remember that calm or soothe him. Though Nick didn't have an ideal upbringing with perfect parents, memories of them remind him of being a child and how little one had to worry when they're young, especially about the things adult Nick has to consider, like being wounded in war. These memories also tie together all the past Nick Adams stories; he is reminiscing over a childhood we got to live through as well.
1.In general, I really enjoyed this story, not only because of feeling nostalgic at the time I was reading it and able to connect on a closer level, but it just seemed like a beautiful story, a little snapshot of life. This was the first time that Nick was in first person point of view, making him an active member of the story. There wasn’t anything really dramatic or strange throughout this story, just a conversation between soldiers and memories. One of the distinct moments in the story that really stood out to be is when he recalls the story of his mother cleaning out the basement and burning what she didn’t need and how Doc Adams reacted. He dropped his hunting gear (his shotgun, which is pretty amazing considering how he acted in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife”), and ran to try and get the remains of the fire that as his stuff. “They had all been blackened and chipped by the fire. My father raked them out very carefully and spread them on the grass by the road. His shotgun in its leather case and his game bags were on the grass where he had left them when he stepped down from the buggy,” (147). To me, this kind of shows how important memories are, even to people like Doc Adams. The material items signify memories that were created and serve as a reminder when times get tough because one might not always remember the details.
ReplyDelete2. Just from how clear the writing is, Nick doesn’t seem that wounded, but there is mentions of an explosion and him having been wounded. On a mental level, Nick seems to have trouble coping with the traumatic events of the war. When he goes to sleep, he is trying to occupy himself so that he doesn’t actually go to sleep during the night where it is dark. He goes on a long tirade of how he used to fish for trout, even making up rivers. To me, this says that he is trying to delve deeper into his childhood where everything seemed to be idealistic and safe. He’s trying to stay grounded and remember the better times because he is going through this terrible event. He is reverting back to his innocent childhood where nothing bad ever really happened, all that often.
3. Personally, I think the reason that he won’t use lizards and crickets for bait is because they kind of destroy this idealistic image that he has remembered and created, added onto, that keeps him occupied during the night. The lizards and crickets seem to be struggling when they are on the hook, making them actually alive while the worms and the cut up trout don’t actually move all that much (I am assuming). By using them as bait, Nick is forcing them to do something they don’t want to do and they are just fighting for their survival. When he is telling the audience of his memory, he says that he didn’t use them because of the they way they acted about on the hook. That tells me that they are alive and struggling, forced to be bait. Nick, at a young age is presumably unable to compartmentalize and having them struggle just brings in the concept of life and death, and as we have discussed before in class, an initiation into adulthood. By remaining in his memories, he is able to be safe and do whatever he wants, but when introducing the salamander and crickets, it hits just a little to close to his current situation of being in the war, struggling to stay alive.
1.) I thought “Now I Lay Me” was a sad and lonely story. It provided illumination on how Nick’s early life impacted him later on. He is lonely and feels disillusioned, perhaps because of his parents’ relationship growing up- it has turned him off to relationships. The only real kinship he feels is with nature, especially fishing. Perhaps that is the one element of his life which has not failed him. The one moment that stayed with me was when Nick’s mother burned all of his father’s things “that should not have been there” (147). It was quite disturbing how his mother smiled and seemed to enjoy destroying what his father loved. The moment when his father said “‘The best arrowheads all went to pieces” (148) particularly resonated with me because while he was calm, he was clearly hurt by what his wife did to his belongings.
ReplyDelete2.) I do not think he is extremely physically wounded, but perhaps something happened to him which caused him to be removed from the front lines. He is seven kilometers behind the front lines, which I assume means that he is not fighting. Also, he sleeps during the day at times when he cannot sleep at night, which suggests that he is not fighting during the day (at all).
3.) Nick does not want to get married because the example of marriage that he had to grow up with was toxic- his mother and father’s relationship. As a young child, the image of marriage being an unhappy thing we imprinted onto his mind, and no matter how many other examples of happy marriage he sees, he will always hold that fear of an unhappy and destructive union in his mind.
I like seeing one of the more peaceful moments in Nick's life. It makes him that much more relatable because his situation mirrors a few that I've had with some of my friends (without the smoking and talk of wife and kids). I think of staying up late and just talking about anything that comes to mind, and I can feel a sense of serenity. What sticks with me after reading this is Nick talking to John, "'No, I can't sleep now. I'm wide awake now, Signor Tenente. Say, I'm worried about you not sleeping, though.'" (151) This sticks with me because John acts more like a father to Nick than most of the times with Doctor Adams that we've seen, showing a concern that was hard to see in Henry Adams.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Nick is very physically injured, but mentally, he's very damaged. He's scared of going to sleep because he doesn't like the feeling of his soul coming out of his body. He doesn't seem physically injured because first, he's sleeping on the ground on straw, and second, he says it was a long time since the incident that caused him this phobia of sleeping and not knowing.
I see the use of his memory of his parents as a way to compare them to John. John cares for Nick and the memory of Nicks parents seems off to me. Nick also seems to pray for John than he does for his parents, stating how often he prays for John at the end of the story.
1. Although the story has a rather slow and gradual pacing about it, "Now I Lay Me" was one of my favorite pieces that we've read so far. This is because it allows us to glimpse Nick's inner thoughts much more than we were previously able. The moment that stuck with mot actually appeared twice; this moment is when Nick concentrates on the silkworms and the steady "dropping in the leaves (144), (152)" that they create. Nick focuses on this because he seeks some sort of calm regularity somewhat like sleep, as sleep allows one to escape the world for a time; however, at the same time, Nick doesn't want to sleep because of fears he has from the wounds he's sustained on the front lines. As much as Nick wants to let go, we can see his fears hold him back and control him, but only with a "very great effort (144)."
ReplyDelete2. Nick doesn't appear to be physically wounded, or, at least not anymore; still, we clearly see the mental impact that the war has had on him in many moments: the battle between sleep/wanting to escape and Nick's fear of death, his attempts to pray for every person he's ever known, and his dodging of John's advice and questions about his normal life, just to name a few.
3. The possibility of getting married reminds Nick of negative things. He remembers within this story moments of his parents' marriage, which had multiple flaws that affected Nick as he grew up, and John states at one point that Nick doesn't need to communicate well with who he marries, he just needs to marry them. This reflects what happened with his mother and father; they are shown to believe in very different things in other stories, and different or opposing beliefs can lead to miscommunication, arguments, or fights, which seem to have occurred many times while Nick was growing up. We see a lot of possible negative situations in "The Doctor and The Doctor's Wife"; their disparity is even show in the title.
*shown in the title
Delete1. I really enjoyed this story because it showed Nick’s thought process and went really in depth. What stuck with me the most is in the beginning when Nick talks about how he would, “think of a trout stream I had fished along when I was a boy”. Nick keeps going on about the stream and how he traces them all with his mind and fishes them. I think this is not him actually thinking about fishing but rather him going through the streams of memories in his life and fishing out memories and moments from each particular part of his life. He even says he makes up streams, which is his way of saying that he is making up memories and slowly going insane.
ReplyDelete2. I think that physically Nick is wounded because his orderly says so, and also why else would he have an orderly following him. I think though his bigger injury is too his mind. This injury is seen in his inability to sleep at night and him making up false memories of his past life.
3. I think that Nick doesn’t use salamanders and crickets as bait because of how they act when hooked. They struggle and keep moving when hooked and this brings out his humanity and makes him feel bad for them. The movement brings him to the realization that they are actually living creatures and killing them for fun is cruel.