Ernest Hemingway is praised for his use of the “iceberg effect”. The effect giving the reader just enough information to get the point across and grab his or her attention. The tip of the iceberg are the facts that the reader must know, and the rest of the Iceberg, the majority of it - is left up for the reader to discover. This portion is uncovered by how the reader interprets the “two different meanings of a phrase, not from multiple interpretations of its thematic import” (Cohen 1). As Hemmingway’s writing evolved, so did the “crystalline clarity and structural simplicity” (158) of the tip of his icebergs, but in Soldier’s Home one of his first published works the “iceberg” appears to be an unclear, uncertain, and clouded object. Cohen analyzes Soldier’s Home and comes to the conclusion that it is not Hemmingway who is being cloudy and “ambiguous” but, “Perhaps the question is wrongly put and should be not why Hemmingway was vague, but why Krebs was.” (160).
Cohen claims that Hemmingway was not the one being vague and ambiguous, but instead it was Krebs. Cohen says that is Hemmingway taking the styles of other authors and allowing their influence to show in his own writings. Such as “Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness techniques in A Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses” (160). Cohen claims that by Hemmingway “staying faithful to a characters thoughts, their sometimes ambiguous twists and turns must be include.” (160). This just so happens to be a coincidence of some sorts. I cannot come to the conclusion that Hemmingway was modeling his writing from that of another author, even though he still hadn’t perfected the “structural simplicity and crystalline clarity” (158) he is so well known for. I think the ambiguity and vagueness is...
... middle of paper ...
...hy frat boy with a vague and ambiguous mind to a war hardened soldier who had clear and concise and structured thoughts. Which could also be interpreted as how Hemmingway evolved through his writing and his life from a confused and vague boy to a war hardened clear and concise man. In a way you could say the war influenced what Hemmingway is most known for. The iceberg effect could have been influenced by his time spent in war. As a soldier in the battlefield you need to be as simple and clear in your messages as to not avoid confusion. Hemmingway transferred this into his writing and created one of the most well-known writing styles in the process, the “Iceberg Effect”.
Works Cited
Cohen, Milton A. "Vaguness and Ambiguity in Hemmingway's "soldier's Home": Two Puzzling Passages." The Hemingway Review. University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Hemingway’s narrative technique, then, is characterized by a curt style that emphasizes objectivity through highly selected details, flat and neutral diction, and simple declarative sentences capable of ironic understatements; by naturalistic presentation of actions and facts, with no attempt of any kind by the author to influence the reader; by heavy reliance on dramatic dialogue of clipped, scrappy forms for building plot and character; and by a sense of connection between some different stories so that a general understanding of all is indispensable to a better understanding of each. He thus makes the surface details suggest rather than tell everything they have to tell, hence the strength of his “iceberg.” His short stories, accordingly, deserve the reader’s second or even third reading.
In “The Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, the theme of abortion is illustrated by the clash of a male and female relationship and the symbolic meanings of the Middle East. While in Spain the American and the girl are torn between one decision: whether to have an abortion or to have a baby.
His “iceberg theory” hides a far greater mass of ice underneath. Just like the abortion part of this story. He leaves the elements of the story to the reader so the readers thoughts and feelings are completely their own interpretations. Moreover, when we tell a story, the how we tell the story is important because you can’t just tell a happy story with a sad attitude it will make the story seem like it’s sad when it’s not. When I look at the painting Hunters in the Snow, I see hunters and their dogs coming back from a hunting trip empty handed. The figures postures show an unhappiness tone. The colors of the painting also suggest a dark and gloomy life of hardship type of setting. In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants” at first seems happy and like the couple is just going on a trip. But as you read further you start to figure out what’s really happening. The how Hemingway told his story made us keep guessing about what the point of the story was. Also, the how Hemingway wrote his story, in short sentences gives the story a different tone to it so some might mistake what the story is really
Ernest Hemingway used an abundant amount of imagery in his War World I novel, A Farewell to Arms. In the five books that the novel is composed of, the mind is a witness to the senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. All of the these senses in a way connects to the themes that run through the novel. We get to view Hemingway’s writing style in a greater depth and almost feel, or mentally view World War I and the affects it generates through Lieutenant Henry’s eyes.
Chapter VI of In Our Time is written in third person. Rather than an “oh well” attitude, Hemmingway remains optimistic, “Things were getting forward in the town. It was going well.” This positivity is ironic in nature, because the author describes the numerous dead just beforehand. Nick speaks sarcastically to Rinaldi, saying they have “made a separate piece.” Nick and Rinaldi are fighting for opposing countries, and Nick suggests that they may as well be acquaintances before they die. Hemmingway dwells on one scene for a larger time span than Remarque. For instance, the entire passage describes Nick, Rinaldi, and their surroundings, “His face was sweaty and dirty. The sun shone on his face. The day was very hot.” A reader of Hemmingway must delve into his words to grasp the plot. He writes with strong imagery. It is unchallenging to picture the “bedstead [hanging] twisted towards the street” or “Rinaldi, big-backed, his equipment sprawling.” Hemmingway draws the reader in, first with imagery, then with his wit. To summarize, Hemmingway’s writing is dramatic and
Throughout the 20th century there were many influential pieces of literature that would not only tell a story or teach a lesson, but also let the reader into the author’s world. Allowing the reader to view both the positives and negatives in an author. Ernest Hemingway was one of these influential authors. Suffering through most of his life due to a disturbingly scarring childhood, he expresses his intense mental and emotional insecurities through subtle metaphors that bluntly show problems with commitment to women and proving his masculinity to others.
Rebecca Makkai’s short story, “The Briefcase” embraces Hemingway’s self-described Iceberg Theory of writing. Bare and cold, “The Briefcase” is a story of omission; the structure deep beneath the surface of the printed word floating on a page. Makkai’s war time setting is like a treatise on life. The need to live find us drifting, grasping for self-definition. It matters who we are as individuals; to make sense of our lives. Makkai turns us upside down; our puffed up secure universe of self. War reveals our real self is only concerned about survival. Life is about surviving hard times. If you haven’t had hard times, keep living.
Ernest Hemingway was one of the most significant novelists of the 20th century .He was born in twenty first of July, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, as a young man he worked in the school newspaper and then in graduation instead of going to college, he went to the Kansas City Star to work for newspapers, that background in journalism had a lot to do with his later literary style . Ernest Hemingway writing style was significant because he was so brief and straightforward with his short concise sentences. During world war one he served as an ambulance driver and then he moved to Paris when he wrote his first novel” The Sun Also Rises“ in 1926. His works had a big success, but his life was stormy, he had this pathological thing that as soon she married one woman he fell in love with another one usually much younger one and his happened over and over again . He was married four times, with his first wife Hadley they had a son John with his second wife Pauline he had two sons Patric and Gregory, he was then married to the journalist Martha Gellhorn and then finally to Mary Welsh. In 1951 Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize of “The Old Man and The Sea” and two years later he was honored with the noble prize in literature. In his later life he felt depression , anxiety probably mental illness , he suffered with alcoholism with an ongoing battle with entertainments in his life .He committed suicide when finally he found that all the virtues that he could have valued such as self controlled ad health productivity had to come and end. Hemingways greatest work may have been his life , the life that he lived, he continued being a writer, not just sitting in an isolated room but gambling and make a show about it . Ernest Hemingway wrot...
"After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain" (332). This last line of the novel gives an understanding of Ernest Hemingway's style and tone. The overall tone of the book is much different than that of The Sun Also Rises. The characters in the book are propelled by outside forces, in this case WWI, where the characters in The Sun Also Rises seemed to have no direction. Frederick's actions are determined by his position until he deserts the army. Floating down the river with barely a hold on a piece of wood his life, he abandons everything except Catherine and lets the river take him to a new life that becomes increasing difficult to understand. Nevertheless, Hemingway's style and tone make A Farewell to Arms one of the great American novels. Critics usually describe Hemingway's style as simple, spare, and journalistic. These are all good words they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence. His writing has been likened to a boxer's punches--combinations of lefts and rights coming at us without pause. As illustrated on page 145 "She went down the hall. The porter carried the sack. He knew what was in it," one can see that Hemingway's style is to-the-point and easy to understand. The simplicity and the sensory richness flow directly from Hemingway's and his characters' beliefs. The punchy, vivid language has the immediacy of a news bulletin: these are facts, Hemingway is telling us, and they can't be ignored. And just as Frederic Henry comes to distrust abstractions like "patriotism," so does Hemingway distrust them. Instead he seeks the concrete and the tangible. A simple "good" becomes higher praise than another writer's string of decorative adjectives. Hemingway's style changes, too, when it reflects his characters' changing states of mind. Writing from Frederic Henry's point of view, he sometimes uses a modified stream-of-consciousness technique, a method for spilling out on paper the inner thoughts of a character. Usually Henry's thoughts are choppy, staccato, but when he becomes drunk the language does too, as in the passage on page 13, "I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
The Iceberg Principle that Hemingway is so fond of, has already given rise to many discussions over the years. Giving away only a tip of it, Hemingway leaves us behind with a great amount of mystery in his stories.
The Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway; edited by Scott Donaldson; Cambridge U. P.; New York, NY; 1996
Earnest Hemingway’s work gives a glimpse of how people deal with their problems in society. He conveys his own characteristics through his simple and “iceberg” writing style, his male characters’ constant urge to prove their masculinity.
Ernest Hemingway was an American journalist, novelist, and poet. Born July 21, 1899 in the small town of Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway would go on to create a lasting impact on the world through his writing. Most people are familiar with Hemingway and his books, but few actually know that it became possible for him to write them due to the experience he garnered as a journalist. From For Whom the Bell Tolls to The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway’s novels remain a staple of American literature. Throughout his life, Hemingway published a plethora of fictional stories that were greatly influential to 20th century literature and future generations of writers utilizing experiences from throughout his lifetime as inspiration.
In the novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway creates a moving and intense portrayal of love between Catherine Barkley and Frederic Henry, which is set mainly on the Italian Front during World War I. The novel was originally published in 1929, after Hemingway himself served as an ambulance driver for the Italian Red Cross. Due to this experience, Hemingway is able to show great detail and description when writing about the scenes of war on the Italian Front. Additionally, he draws on his experiences with a nurse and similarities can be seen in the events in his novel and in the events in his life leading up to the writing of A Farewell to Arms. While a select few of the initial reactions claim that this particular novel is a disgusting, salacious, and a violent account, the majority of reviews written shortly after the novel was originally published commend Hemmingway for his detailed picture of the war, the intensity of the love story, and the craftsmanship and talent of his writing style. This leads most to claim that A Farewell to Arms is one of Ernest Hemingway’s most successful and masterful works.