Feminist Literary Criticism in Indian Camp By Ernest Hemingway

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Feminist Literary Criticism in Indian Camp By Ernest Hemingway

In the short story “Indian Camp”, by Ernest Hemingway, many controversies arise about the idea of feminism in the text. Feminism is a general term used to describe advocating women’s rights socially, politically, and making equal rights to those of men. Feminist criticism is looked through a “lens” along the line of gender roles in literature, the value of female characters within the text, and interpreting the perspective from which the text is written. Many of Hemingway’s female characters display anti-feminist attributes due to the role that women play or how they are referred to within a text by him or other characters. There are many assumptions that go along with the analysis of “Indian Camp” through a feminist lens such as roles in the story, the use of a male viewpoint, and how the men interact with the women.

Ernest Hemingway was a writer of short stories who liked to hint a deep meaning, instead of just plainly stating it in the story. “Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from the surface story which he called the Iceberg Theory” (Assemi et al). This theory makes his writing distinctive from other writers. He has a reputation of stereotyping female characters as weak or dependent on men when he creates them in his writings. He gives the men most of the power and credit without regards to acknowledging the importance of women. According to the article “Women Ignorance in Short Stories of Hemingway,” “despite his efforts to write invaluable pieces, it seems he was unable to cover his anti-women attitudes in his works. In spite of four marriages and numerous affairs he never seemed to have stability or lasting sat...

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....com. My Meta Journal on Education for Lit 6937: Blogger. 11 March 2011. Web. 14 May 2014.

Assemi, Arezoo, et al. “Women Ignorance in Short Stories of Hemingway.” IPEDR.com. International Conference on Language, Medias and Culture. 2012. Web. 14 May 2014.

Brandt, Jeff. “Ernest Hemingway: In Limbo between Sexism and Feminism.” jtbrandt.com. Web. 16 May 2014.

Hemingway, Ernest. "Indian Camp." The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition. By Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987. 67-70. Web. 22 April 2014.

“Indian Camp.” In Our Time: Ernest Hemingway. SparkNotes LLC. Web. 16 May 2014.

Wray, Will. “POINT: The Chauvinistic Undertones of Earnest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises Are Representative of the 20th Century Male's Ulterior Resentment of Emer.” Thenoser.com. The Brown Noser. 5 Dec. 2008. Web. 15 May 2014.

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