Phobia, Afraid of Death Essay -- Psychology, The Nick Adam Stories

Most people are afraid of death. Some people are scared of being dead; others are terrified of the act of dying. However, the fear of death does not occur naturally; usually little kids do not even know what death is. This kind of fear can originate from early childhood, especially in brutal environments. Facing a horrifying experience may result in psychological trauma, which causes fears and nightmares. When we are little we have our family to take care of us and make fears manageable. But what if parents are not capable of doing that? What if they think that it is better for their child to go through fears alone? Ernest Hemingway in The Nick Adams Stories provides an example of the consequence of parents’ refusal to guide their child through his early and difficult experiences. Nick Adams is afraid of death as a result of his violent environment and lack of parental support. Nick’s childhood begins in the Michigan woods where his father takes him to fish and hunt. From those early years Nick is scared of the unknown and indefinite which is an indication of death: â€Å"He was not afraid of anything definite as yet. But he was getting very afraid.† (14). Then he realizes that he would die someday too. Here the child firstly realizes what the death is and then gets scared. However, his parents do not help Nick overcome those fears earlier, which lead to Nick’s obsession with death later in his life. In â€Å"Indian Camp† where Dr. Adams takes his boy to watch a woman in labor, Nick has his first encounter with both birth and death. Watching his father perform a very rational but fierce surgery and witnessing woman suffer from pain leads to psychological trauma of Nick. Although Nick is trying â€Å"not to see what his father is doing† (19), D... ...llow color of the house signifies Nick’s cowardice† (32). When Captain Paravicini tells Nick that he is very courageous, he answers: â€Å"No†¦ I prefer to get stinking. I’m not ashamed of it.† â€Å"Besides associating yellow with cowardice, most scholars agree that Nick’s mind has provided ‘the yellow house in place of the sensory details of his wounding and death’† (Quick, 32). The phobias people have can be due to different reasons, most of the time these come from something they either experienced or have somebody told them (second hand experience). In Nick's case it was both. More over, the intensity of the events happening in his life is tremendous. The outcomes can be seen in Nick's deep trauma and his psychological disability that causes significant distress and fear of death. The state Nick is in can be very harmful and can even have lethal effect on him.