Edwards 1

Andrea M. Edwards
English 582- Rhetoric and Poetics
Kraemer, Dr. Donald
7 June 2012
Revised: Fall 2015
Now I Lay Me- Hemingway and Narrative
In Ernest Hemingways short story Now I Lay Me, Nick Adams is reminiscing about a
time when he had insomnia, having nightmares caused by the war he served in where he could
have died at anytime, so instead decides to reminisce on his childhood, converses with his
orderly about marriage, by the end the story moves to his orderly visiting him in the hospital
months later, and being disappointed when he sees Nick has not gotten married. His orderly,
John, who is married and has three daughters (Hemingway 369), uses some of Phelans idea of
redundant storytelling, Explanations that seek to preserve the mimetic component of the story
plausible, naturalistic rationale for the narration (25). John does this by constantly saying to
Nick that he should get married (Hemingway 369-70). Phelan would say this narration is actually
more of a lyric narrative (30) or to explain in more detail:
To clarify that claim, I turn now to more general descriptions of what
marks a given text narrative, what marks another as lyric, and what marks a third
text as a character portrait; these descriptions are all based on the rhetorical
definition of narrative I referred to in the introduction: somebody telling

Edwards 2

somebody else on some occasion for some purpose that something happened
(161).
I believe that his theory on redundant or repetitious storytelling is more precise than his theory
on it being a lyric narrative. Although it seems as though it would be classified as a lyric
narrative because of this:
I begin with Now I Lay Me, paying attention to the logic of its
progression, its movement from Nick the tellers memories of how he used to stay
awake during the war by remembering his past to his memory of a conversation
on the specific night to his present situation (Phelan 163).
I would argue that Phelan is using his theory of repetitious
storytelling and lyric narrative to describe the narrative
devices used for Now I Lay Me.
Hemingway projects himself through his character Nick

This was one of the first rhetoric

papers I have ever written, and I
was not entirely sure how to state
the thesis, so I highlighted it to
show what my thesis was, and what
I was attempting to argue. I wanted
to focus on the lyric narrative
because I felt it best suited Now I
Lay Me, and I still believe it does.

Adams, and he shows up in about twenty-four of Hemingways

short stories (Flora 2-3). Now I Lay Me is where readers learn some information on Nick, is
told from the first-person point-of-view, and is information which could be useful to how readers
might be able to relate to him or get to know more about him in other stories, Surviving and
creatingthese are at the core of the Nick saga. The sense of power accompanying the creating
repeatedly evokes the first chapter of Genesis, as in the nighttime scene of Now I Lay Me,
where Nick lies in hospital seeking to separate the darkness and the light (Flora 3). This relates
to the narrative because the reader needs to know who is telling this story and why, and so far

Edwards 3

what the reader learns is Nick is the crusading protagonist of this story, and this is his story to
tell. Phelan states:
Hemingways disclosure exceeds Nicks narration because Hemingway,
unlike Nick, has constructed logic behind the twist and turns of Nicks
monologue. Indeed, this move on Hemingways part is crucial to our responding
to the story as a lyric narrative because it
Aside from the lyric narrative which
is presented in this story, the lyric
narrative can be linked to memory,
and in this case, possibly artificial
memory in the sense that
Hemingway wants the reader to
remember Nick and his story by
repetition presented throughout the
story; although the audience does
not know if what Nick is
remembering is real, or if it may
have somehow been altered in some
form to allow or prevent Nick from
remembering certain areas of his
past.

underlines the distance between the implied

author and his character narrator (165).
Nick is reiterating the story of his insomnia to the
audience and his orderly John, and his voice is rendering
itself to a lyric narrative when he remembers the insomnia
and his childhood past, but when John begins to speak
about marriage and he begins to emphasize it, then it
becomes an amalgamation of a lyric narrative and

repetitive storytelling. Hemingway encourages readers to create their own explanations of Nicks
overall character or actions to prevent readers from considering Nick as an undisputed
representation of Hemingway, but to say there is a distance between Hemingway and his
character, Nick, is to say Hemingway has little similarities or relationship to Nick, when in
reality Nick is similar to Hemingway because he is a reflection of what Hemingway had gone
through during his time in two World Wars and the Spanish Civil War (Hemingway 501).

Edwards 4

Nick Adams may or may not be a reliable narrator because of his memories, his second
name, and his insomnia and because of dialogue such as this:
Cant you sleep, Signor Tenente? he asked.
No.
I cant sleep, either.
Whats the matter?
I dont know. I cant sleep (Hemingway
367).
Nick does not call himself Nick, and for reasons the
reader is not given he is going by the name of Signor
Tenente, so this change in his name is the first sign of his

I had to point out the differences in

names because the audience isnt
aware of this change at first, and
then begins to realize it as the story
progresses. The audience questions
Nicks credibility because if he
cannot remember his own name,
then how is the audience to trust any
other memories he might have been
describing in the story? Dreams can
always be deceptive, and in Nicks
case, it appears to be an issue for
Nick and the audience.

credibility as a narrator coming into play because he is

going by two different names. The second sign is his
inability to sleep which can lead to delusions and those delusions can hinder his ability as a
narrator. I would like to classify this as insomnia thanks to what I am given in the story on page
363, and throughout the remainder of the story, but I know a critic who will disagree with me,
Nick did not have insomnia but fear (Phelan 167), and I completely disagree with this
statement because fear can bring on insomnia and if the current definition in The MerriamWebster Dictionary is correct: prolonged and usually abnormal inability to get enough sleep
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insomnia), then poor Nick is certainly suffering
from insomnia. I think this fear could fall into the abnormal inability to get enough sleep

Edwards 5

category especially if it is fear brought on by being in a war situation, Say, Signor Tenente, what
did you get in this war for, anyway? (Hemingway 369). Phelan states Nick the teller is in much
the same psychological state as Nick the soldier. Although he may no longer worry that his soul
will go out of his body if he falls asleep, Nick is still living with deep wounds that disturbs his
nights (165). Phelan seems to contradict himself when he states Nick does not have insomnia
because of the definition I have given states he does.
The issue of Nicks memories and his out-of-body experience are mentioned in this story,
Nick's soul did once leave him, but returned, as he was wounded in Now I Lay Me (276)
(Hannum 94). Nick does state on page 363, I myself did not want to sleep because I had been
living for a long time with the knowledge that if I ever shut my eyes in the dark and let myself
go, my soul would go out of my body. I believe this could have been an idea his parents or
someone in his life may have placed into his head as a child, or he has been awake for so long he
is becoming delusional, or he is so frightened by what could happen because of the war he is in
he convinces himself to believe that if he goes to sleep his soul will leave his body. Another critic
states, Nick in Now I Lay Me even explains how he does it, as well as recalling for us which
day-dreams work and which dont in relieving his anxiety (Benson 351), his day-dreams are his
memories of his childhood (Hemingway 364-6), and he uses these memories to ease his fear, but
these memories do not help him in easing his fear or anxiety. This goes back to his credibility as
a narrator because according to Phelan, despite his retrospective stance, Nick has not fully
formulated the story he is about to tell; indeed, he is less focused on the narrative than on
feelings that motivate his memories (166). Nick could count as a credible narrator because he
did not have time to recount the story he is telling. He is just simply telling his story as it unfolds

Edwards 6

and as he remembers it. The implied author wants us to believe this is what Nick remembers and
this is his story as he remembers it.
Now I Lay Me is based on the prayer Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, and prayer is
actually mentioned a few times in this story. There is the Hail Mary and the Our Father on
page 365, and On earth as it is in heaven which is part of the Our Father, or the Lords
Prayer on page 366, and the irony of this is as he is praying, he does not want his soul to leave
his body (Hemingway 363), and the title of the story is
Now I Lay Me which is part of the prayer Now I Lay
Me Down to Sleep. Monteiro mentions this little factoid
in his article, And indeed they must in Hemingway's
peopled world, from the rattled Nick Adams of Now I
Lay Me (with its ironic titular reference to still another
prayer) to the author who himself compulsively parodied
the Twenty-Third Psalm in the late 1920s, both in his

I learned later on in another paper I

was writing that the name for this
out-of-body experience is
abbreviated as OOBE, and is also
known as a near death experience.
This also becomes important
because if Nick had a near death
experience, then this also changes
the way the audience is analyzing
this story. Did Nick come close to
dying? Was he in a coma? What
does the audience know about his
OOBE as it relates to his memories?

poem and in his fragmentary first try at writing his novel

about the loss of confidence in war, love, and self (94). Phelan mentions the title of the story
and how it relates to the story, The title provides an important clue in its use of the present tense
and its invocation of the well-known childs bedtime prayer: Now I lay me down to sleep/ I pray
the Lord my soul to keep. / If I should die before I wake/ I pray the Lord my soul to take (164).
This prayer does relate to the story, but it also demonstrates the irony of this story and its title
because it is a prayer about going to sleep when Nick is unable to go to sleep. This prayer
coincides with the dark and deadly theme of the prayer and the story because both are about
sleeping and death, and how sleep and death are related in such a way were one goes to sleep,

Edwards 7

they never know if they are going to wake up. This had to have been the case for Nick because if
he had gone to sleep, then he might have died in his sleep. Phelan claims, Nick also shifts away
from the memory of people and things to the memory of his praying for them, and to the
effectiveness of the prayers in passing the time. At the same time, the specific prayers, Hail
Mary and Our Father, are easily associated with images of Nicks parents (170), and I
believe that Phelan is correct in saying that his prayers for other people are associated with his
parents, but I do genuinely believe that he is also praying to keep himself awake and to pray for
safety of others and maybe even himself. (Also, in the
Catholic Church, Mary is seen as the mother of
humanity or of the church, and God is seen as the father,
so this can easily represent Nicks parents in a literal or
metaphorical sense because the audience is not aware of
who Nicks parents are.) This will also tie into his

This reverts back to his possible

near death experience. Was he
currently experiencing one as he
was saying the Lords Prayer?
This portion is also about how the
title relates to the prayer, and I felt
the need to include this because I
felt as though there was a strong
connection between the title and the
prayer.

memories and how this story is a lyric narrative.

The lyrical aspects of this poem can also be seen through Nicks prayers and his attempt
to quell his fears of what may come, Nick's gentle voice and his evident kindness and courage
in this lyric mode lull us into accepting without judgment claims and analogies we would not
assent to in narrative (Clark 171). Nicks gentle voice describes what we would see in the story
itself, What his method fundamentally amounts to is this: he says nearly everything the way we
might see it, the way we might feel it, in the rhythm of our everyday speech and thought
(Dewing 367). Phelan states, The first such guidance from the implied Hemingway concerns the
answer to the question of why Nick is telling this story, why his monologue is a memory of the
sleepless nights he spent remembering his past, what we might call a metamemory (164). The

Edwards 8

metamemory goes back to the issue of Nicks memory

I thought about metamemory and
inception because these terms
were the most accurate words I
could use to describe Nick Adams
dreams. He was having memories
within memories, and in
juxtaposition, dreams within
dreams. Memory and dreams have a
way for correlating to one another.

and back to the definition of a lyric narrative. Nick is

having an inception of memories because he begins
thinking about the time when he could not sleep, and
because he could not sleep, he then begins to think about
other memories, childhood memories, to help keep
himself awake because he does not want to fall asleep

because he is afraid of what will happen to his soul if he does (Hemingway 363-71). Jeffrey
Meyers uses a passage out of Now I Lay Me in which Nick describes his first memory in order
to describe the author's earliest memory (Benson 346). Nick Adamss memory is important
because it determines whether or not he is a reliable narrator, it determines the scope of the story,
it determines the overall narration of the story and it determines what he will choose to tell the
reader.
There are the emotional and psychological aspects of this story as well. Nick emotional
and psychological states can be linked his fears, memories and nostalgia, Mutability, loss and
the fear of loss, longing, nostalgia, hunger; lost love, lost illusions, and finally lost youth and
the people, places, and experiences of youth: there are the basic themes and motives and
situations of Hemingway's fiction, and they are almost always more essential than violence and
death (Adair 299). Nick is in an anxiety heavy state and he will do anything to keep his cool
under pressure, The value of discipline is also linked to the most famous of Hemingways
values, couragealso frequently called grace under pressure (Phelan 180). Phelan also mentions
that, Nick the teller is in much the same psychological state as Nick the solider. At some point
in the story, he no longer worries about his soul leaving his body if he falls asleep, Nick is still

Edwards 9

living with deep wounds that disturbs his nights (Phelan 164-5). Nick psychological state is
centered on insomnia, and he does whatever he can to keep himself awake, Positing
physiological foci for his protagonists' problems could seem happenstance until one considers
the scope of the device in Hemingway's writing: Lieutenant Nick Adams trying to ignore his
nighttime war fears (Now I Lay Me, 1927) while the silkworms chew the leaves as relentlessly
as the enemy might chew on him and his comrades (Raabe 162). Nick listens to silkworms
chew leaves, he prays, he thinks about his past, he goes back to praying, and then he starts up a
conversation with John, his orderly to keep himself from falling asleep, but what he fails to
realize is by doing all of this it makes it harder for him to ever go back to sleep.
The narration of Now I Lay Me is problematic for many critics because some of them
believe that it is not scrutinized or criticized enough, The tension between those impulses and
the criticism that Hemingway himself subjects them to is most subtly, and perhaps most
profoundly, expressed in Now I Lay Me, a work that has not received adequate critical scrutiny,
though it is often referred to by students of Hemingway (Holder 156). Although, Phelan might
disagree with this because he believes the narrative is criticized, Now I Lay Me remains for
me one of the most powerful and most disconcerting of Hemingways brilliant corpus of short
stories, (Phelan 182). I am going to agree with Phelan on this because this is one of
Hemingways better short stories, and I say this because the narrative is engaging and it is one of
those stories where the reader has to figure out what is happening in the narrative, and what lead
Nick Adams to this point. The narration becomes more problematic because of the dialogue
between Nick and John that leads me to believe this is redundant storytelling and not just lyric
narrative. The dialogue between Nick and John also gives insight as to why Now I Lay Me is
different than many of the other stories Hemingway has written in the past, Now I Lay Me,

Edwards 10

also narrated by a young American in the Italian army who has also been wounded and who also
has a conversation about marriage. But whereas in the first story the narrator wants to marry and
is warned not to, in the second the narrator, who seems unwilling to marry, is advised to do so by
his orderly, John (Smith 175). The narrative is clear on
I felt it necessary to address this
narrative because it became clear to
me this was a recurring pattern in
Hemingways short stories.
Hemingway loves to use repetitive
storytelling because he knows his
audience will remember the story if
it is told in this manner.

this on page 370 of Now I Lay Me:

No, John, I dont think so.
You ought to get married, Signor
Tenente. Then you wouldnt worry.
I dont know.

You ought to get married. Why dont you pick out some nice Italian girl
with plenty of money? You could get any one you want. Youre young and you
got good decorations and you look nice. You been wounded a couple of times.
I cant talk the language well enough.
You talk it fine. To hell with talking the language. You dont have to talk
to them. Marry them.
Hemingway makes it clear who is who in this story and who says what in this story, so that the
reader is not playing a complete guessing game with the dialogue, although, as the readers can
see, John is repeating himself quite a few times when it comes to marriage, which is why this
short story can easily be viewed as a repetitive story and a lyric narrative because these devices
are displayed within the story.

Edwards 11

In conclusion, I support Phelan analysis repetitive storytelling and lyric narrative as

narrative devices employed in Now I Lay Me because Hemingways short story is a blending
both types of narratives as a mental visualization for readers. Now I Lay Me is different from
his other short stories such as A Clean, and Well-Lighted Place and Hills Like White
Elephants because we immediately know who the narrator is, Nick Adams, and the readers are
fairly sure that Hemingway is the implied author because of how much Nick and Hemingway
have in common with each another. Hemingway seems to project his thoughts and feelings onto
Nick, and I get a sense of this in the narration. I assert that if Phelan paid closer attention to the
story, then he would be able to see that Hemingway is projecting himself onto this character. He
may not be projecting all of the aspects of his personality and what he has been through onto this
character, but the reader can get a sense that he is projecting enough of himself onto the character
in order for the audience to get a feel for what real war situations include. Hemingway has been
through war, and thus he wants his audience empathize what his experiences were like through
the character of Nick Adams.
Works Cited
Adair, William. Ernest Hemingway and the Poetics of Loss. College Literature, Vol. 10, No. 3,
First-Decade Issue (Fall, 1983), pp. 294-306. Published by: College Literature. Article
Stable URL: http://0-www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/25111564
Benson, Jackson J. Ernest Hemingway: The Life as Fiction and the Fiction as Life. American
Literature , Vol. 61, No. 3 (Oct., 1989), pp. 345-358. Published by: Duke University
Press.

Article

Stable

www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/2926824

URL:

http://0-

Edwards 12

Clark, Miriam Marty. Hemingway's Early Illness Narratives and the Lyric Dimensions of Now
I Lay Me. Narrative , Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 2004), pp. 167-177. Published by: Ohio
State

University

Press.

Article

Stable

URL:

http://0-

www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/20107340
Dewing, Arthur. The Mistake about Hemingway. The North American Review, Vol. 232, No. 4
(Oct., 1931), pp. 364-371. Published by: University of Northern Iowa. Article Stable
URL: http://0-www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/25113917
Flora, Joseph M. Names and Naming in Hemingway's Short Stories. South Atlantic Review,
Vol. 69, No. 1 (Winter, 2004), pp. 1-8. Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language
Association.

Article

Stable

URL:

http://0-

www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/3201563
Hannum, Howard L. Scared Sick Looking at It: A Reading of Nick Adams in the Published
Stories. Twentieth Century Literature , Vol. 47, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 92-113.
Published

by: Hofstra

University.

Article

Stable

URL:

http://0-

www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/827858
Hemingway, Ernest. The Short Stories: The First Forty-Nine Stories with a Brief Preface by the
Author. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.
Holder, Alan. The Other Hemingway. Twentieth Century Literature , Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct.,
1963), pp. 153-157. Published by: Hofstra University. Article Stable URL: http://0www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/441033
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insomnia

Edwards 13

Monteiro, George. Ernest Hemingway, Psalmist. Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 14, No. 1
(Summer, 1987), pp. 83-95. Published by: Indiana University Press. Article Stable URL:
http://0-www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/3831342
Phelan, James. Living to Tell About It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration. Ithaca:
Cornell UP, 2005. Print.
Raabe, David M. Hemingway's Anatomical Metonymies. Journal of Modern Literature, Vol.
23, No. 1 (Summer, 1999), pp. 159-163. Published by: Indiana University Press. Article
Stable URL: http://0-www.jstor.org.opac.library.csupomona.edu/stable/3831824