Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Fighting tradition : Hemingway’s Nick Adams and shell shock

Public Deposited

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/8049g955s

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • In his Nick Adams stories, Ernest Hemingway traces the life of a single man as he moves from boyhood to adolescence to adulthood to fatherhood. From the beginning of Nick Adam’s life, it is clear that he does not fit into the role of the traditional hero. In addition, Nick has difficulty achieving proper masculinity in terms of how it was viewed at the time the stories take place. Instead, the young Nick continually shows himself to be fearful, immature, and timid. These characteristics would have labeled him as susceptible and predisposed to shell shock, a mark of unmanliness, during the early twentieth century. This thesis examines how Nick displays himself as predisposed to shell shock before going to World War I and the tension surrounding why a person becomes shell shocked. The opposing views regarding shell shock at the time Hemingway wrote the Nick Adams stories is evident in the writing itself as the author struggles to decide if Nick is innately flawed or the victim of his environment that does not allow men/heroes to develop. As this thesis concludes, the answer appears to be that Nick is doomed both by a natural weakness of character and a lack of proper male role models who themselves have been "unmanned" by the horrors of modern times.
Resource Type
Date Available
Date Issued
Degree Level
Degree Name
Degree Field
Degree Grantor
Commencement Year
Advisor
Committee Member
Academic Affiliation
Non-Academic Affiliation
Subject
Rights Statement
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
File Format
File Extent
  • 300632 bytes
Replaces

Relationships

Parents:

This work has no parents.

In Collection:

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details Fighting_Tradition__Hemingway_s_Nick_Adams_and_Shell_Shock.pdf 2017-10-20 Public Download