Hemingway’s Dr. Adams: An Analysis and a Diagnosis Anonymous College

The short stories of Ernest Hemingway are particularly renowned for their ambiguity and brevity, and the collection of short stories titled In Our Time contains many of these powerfully minimalistic stories. One character that appears in two separate stories is Dr. Adams, the father of Nick Adams, who is the main character in many of the other short stories. Dr. Adams in present both in “Indian Camp” and in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife”, and Dr. Adams makes an impression in each of these stories. As Hemingway often leaves the character’s thoughts and actions open for interpretation, Dr. Adams is a prime candidate to be evaluated in a psychoanalytic criticism. Modern psychology, although a relatively new and largely still-debated scientific field, focuses on not how people do certain things, but why. Most people would agree that modern psychology began with Sigmund Freud in the early 1900s. Freud came up with many theories in the field, some of which are still adhered to today and some of which have largely been forgotten. Freud’s most important work involves his belief in the subconscious mind—a place that, although we are not aware of the impact, secretly plays a role in the things we say, do, and even dream. Since then,...