Nick at Night: Nocturnal Metafictions in Three Hemingway Short Stories

Compares three related stories that complicate the conventional wound theory by attributing Nick’s anxiety, and by extension Hemingway’s, to a childhood trauma. Sempreora argues that “Now I Lay Me” reveals Nick’s coping mechanisms of memory and invention to prevent the decomposition of his masculine identity. “A Way You’ll Never Be” and “Big Two-Hearted River” reflect the image and verbal patterns used by Nick to reconstruct a safe home. Concludes that Nick’s motives and methods of composition parallel Hemingway’s own creative process