Week 10: Indian Camp

Earnest Hemingway

Dr. Peih-ying Lu

Apr. 29, 2010

Summary of Story

Outline the events that take place in the story.

Summary

Use the medical terms / knowledge you learn to describe the delivery of the baby.

Please chart the psychological state of Nick (the boy) and his father.

How is medicine characterized via the doctor’s persona?

Please provide specific instances in the text to support your assertions.

What are the cultural relations between the whites and the Indians?

Points you can find from the doctor…

① Medical detachment

② Inadequacy of the medical model

The man’s Perspective

The procedure is “awfully simple” and that she “won’t really mind it… it’s not really an operation at all… it’s all perfectly natural.”

Medical Detachment from the story

“Oh Daddy, can't you give her something to make her stop screaming?” asked Nick.

“No. I haven't any anesthetics,” his father said. “But her screams are not important. I don't hear them because they are not important.”

He was feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing-room after a game.

‘That’s one for the medical journal, George’ he said. ‘Doing a Caesarean with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders.’

Medical Detachment

is claimed …

To ensure that a doctor’s judgment and technique are not impaired by personal considerations

To afford the doctor some emotional protection from the suffering that constantly happen in the clinical settings

Yet…..

What is your reaction to the suicide?