Narrator and point of view

“Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway is told through a third-person narrator with the point of view limited to Nick. He is the one through whom all events are focalized which means that we see things through his eyes. 

However, we never get a lot of direct information about Nick’s thoughts and feelings because the narrator is mostly objective. This means that we experience the characters from the outside and must try to interpret their actions to learn about their inner motives. This is typical of Hemingway.

One example is the narrator’s description of Nick’s thoughts during the C-section: 

“See, it’s a boy, Nick,” he said. “How do you like being an intern?” Nick said, “All right.” He was looking away so as not to see what his father was doing. “There. That gets it,” said his father and put something into the basin. Nick didn’t look at it. (p. 14, ll. 39-44)

It does not say directly that Nick finds the operation highly unpleasant or that he is wondering when his father will let him step away. But the description of his actions (looking away) indicates to us how he is feeling.

There are, however, a ...