In Ernest Hemingway's short story "Indian Camp," Nick Adams and his father, a doctor, travel to an Indian camp in the middle of the night. Nick's father is called to help a woman in labor, and Nick accompanies him. When they arrive, they find the woman in a great deal of pain, and her husband is in a state of shock. Nick's father performs a Caesarean section on the woman, and the baby is born. Afterward, the woman's husband commits suicide, and Nick is left to grapple with the implications of what he has seen. The story ends with Nick's father telling him that life is a series of "mysteries" that must be accepted.
By Ernest Hemingway · First published 1924 · Genre: Literary Fiction, Realism, Modernism