The experience of World War I appeared to cause great psychological impact to the men who served. Ernest Hemingway speaks of the traumatic events through Nick Adams and other similar characters, these individuals illustrate the significant effects of the war. Nick is introduced as a young boy who is innocent and unknowing of his distressing future. This young boy transforms throughout the short stories into a man seeking direction within his life. Discovering his purpose within the Italian army serving for a foreign country. This service exposed Nick to a multitude of mentally and physically damaging incidents that resulted in the alteration of his character. Hemingway subtly foreshadows aspects of the war and death throughout Nick’s adolescence
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“I myself did not want to sleep because I had been living for a long time with the knowledge that if I shut my eyes in the dark and let myself go, my soul would go out of my body. I had been that way for a long time, ever since I had been blown up at night and felt it go out of me and go off and then come back.” Nick expresses indications of suffering from shell shock syndrome, today now known as post dramatic stress disorder. Nick is unable to sleep, frightened of the thought of dying within the darkness of the night. “I tried never to think about it, but it had started to go since, in the nights, just the moment of going to sleep, and I could only stop it by a very great effort.” Nick expresses great vulnerability throughout the story Now I Lay Me a trait not always shown by his character. Attempting to block out his fear he begins thinking of anything to distract himself. In this attempt he results to praying however that does not appear to comfort him as he can not always remember his prayers. “Some nights, though I could not remember my prayers even. I could only get as far as ‘On earth as it is in heaven’ and then have to start all over and be absolutely unable to get past that.” Nicks inability to get past the quote “On earth as it is in heaven” suggests what hell on earth has become to him. Hemingway also shows the loss of prayer through another character Harold Krebs in the story
“I myself did not want to sleep because I had been living for a long time with the knowledge that if I shut my eyes in the dark and let myself go, my soul would go out of my body. I had been that way for a long time, ever since I had been blown up at night and felt it go out of me and go off and then come back.” Nick expresses indications of suffering from shell shock syndrome, today now known as post dramatic stress disorder. Nick is unable to sleep, frightened of the thought of dying within the darkness of the night. “I tried never to think about it, but it had started to go since, in the nights, just the moment of going to sleep, and I could only stop it by a very great effort.” Nick expresses great vulnerability throughout the story Now I Lay Me a trait not always shown by his character. Attempting to block out his fear he begins thinking of anything to distract himself. In this attempt he results to praying however that does not appear to comfort him as he can not always remember his prayers. “Some nights, though I could not remember my prayers even. I could only get as far as ‘On earth as it is in heaven’ and then have to start all over and be absolutely unable to get past that.” Nicks inability to get past the quote “On earth as it is in heaven” suggests what hell on earth has become to him. Hemingway also shows the loss of prayer through another character Harold Krebs in the story