Abstract

In "A Way You'll Never Be," Nick Adams returns to the place of his physical wounding, Fossalta di Piave, hoping to understand the recurrent images that haunt his memory and imagination and to resolve his crisis of personal identity. Throughout the story, Nick attempts to affirm his sense of self but is repeatedly confronted with obstacles to that goal. By examining not only Nick's two hallucinations but also the significance of the Third Army of Savoia, the details of Hemingway's own return to the place of his wounding, the revisions that Hemingway made to the story, and the subsequent portrayal of Nick Adams in "Big Two-Hearted River," this paper argues that the psychological anxiety that Nick exhibits stems from his loss of identity and his inability to secure a stable sense of self after his wounding.

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