Analysis Of The Book The Time, The War Veteran Nick By...

Trauma comes in many forms. Victims of trauma often experience violent flashbacks, disillusionment, and feelings of detachment. The process toward recovery is frequently not a simple one. In Ernest Hemingway s short story collection, In Our Time, the war veteran Nick faces the difficult journey from trauma to recovery. Although In Our Time is usually considered a collection of short stories or vignettes, there are several unifying characteristics that piece together Nick s process of recovery. As the short stories progress, both the narrator and his physical surroundings experience a gradual shift. Through these unifying devices of characterization, setting, as well as imagery, Hemingway depicts a single man s rehabilitation across seemingly disconnected stories. Nick s trauma and inability to move past this trauma is reflected in the setting of the first few short stories in the collection. Moreover, Nick’s characterization is closely tied to the descriptions of his surroundi ngs. In the first short story in the collection, â€Å"On the Quai at Smyrna,† the narrator recalls a conversation with a military official, who says â€Å"we were in the harbor and they were all on the pier and at midnight they started screaming. We used to turn the searchlight on to quiet them† (Hemingway 11). This short story provides insight into the narrator’s traumatic past and his time at war. The dark pier, a simple wooden structure which leads out over the turbulent, changing ocean, is the first