Ernest Hemingway Rite Of Passage

Ernest Hemingway’s “In Our Time” is a novel full of short stories and vignettes written carefully to allow his audience see the turmoil of Word War 1 seen through a semi-autobiographical character Nick Adams. Hemingway’s writing style is concise and minimal, but through close reading of each sentence and each word, his words unfold to express a wide range of complex emotions and an underlying theme. The book illustrates that a rite of passage is an imperative or necessary developmental journey a boy must go through to establish his masculinity in order to become a man. This theme is supported through a gamut of contexts of father-son and male-to-male bonding moments, sports, and war. The experiences that Nick goes through and the situations …show more content…
During this time many soldiers experience the same emotional effects. They drink alcohol to get rid of fear. In chapter six, Nick gets shot in the spine and lies against the wall of the church and notices all the dead soldiers around him. His character develops as he matures during this time. One vignette shows how a soldier asks for Jesus’ help to survive a bombardment and will proclaim his name if he survives. He didn’t live up to his promise and was not a man of his word after he was “saved.” This vignette is followed by the short story, “Soldier’s Home” which is about Harold Krebs who returns from war and is feeling empty. He can’t love anymore, not even his own mother, and he can’t pray because it is too difficult. When he came back, the world seemed more modern and complex, but all he wished for was a simple life and to avoid talking about war. Hemingway shows that war was more of an emotional and psychological battle than a physical battle, because they were still fighting it mentally when they had returned home. Nothing prepared Nick for war, but it was after war when Nick showed signs of being a mature and masculine men. War was a significant event for Nick that shaped him into a man his father wanted him to