Ernest Hemingway Research Paper

Before the advent of Ernest Hemingway's Theory of Omission, the typical writing philosophy of writers in the twentieth century in regards to fiction was to include as much information about your story as possible. This was not the case for Hemingway. His revolutionary writing prose, also known as Iceberg Theory, completely transformed the common paradigm of fiction writing. One of his most lauded works, The Old Man and the Sea, as well as many of his other works, use concision and the omission of fundamental concepts, rather than their inclusion, to strengthen the story's emotional affect on the reader.

To understand why Hemingway wrote his stories with such simplicity, as well as the intention of omission, one must know of his occupational

background. Like many other American writers, such as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway began his writing career as a newspaper correspondent. Immediately after graduating high school, he worked as a reporter for the local paper called the Kansas City Star. The cost of print for newspapers and the newspaper company's need for mass public appeal forced Hemingway to write his articles with concision, brevity, and clarity as it would save the company ink and paper, as well as be accessible to more people. Thus, Hemingway had to omit large amounts of important detail . Rather than these circumstances resulting in a negative effect on Hemingway's writing style, he embraced this unorthodox style of writing and continued to use it even within the realm of fiction, which was previously unheard of. Hemingway greatly appreciated his experience at the Kansas City Star this in an interview, “On the Star you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him...” (Hemingway)

The most discernible difference between Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and most other works of fiction is that, in many instances, his writing style is deliberately brief and terse. This is especially evident in the book's dialogue, such as an early conversation between the old man and his former young apprentice:
“What do you have to eat?” the boy asked.
“A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some?”
“No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire?”
“No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold.”
“May I take the cast net?”
“Of course.”
There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.
(Hemingway 15)
Hemingway deliberately removes unnecessary phrases like “he said” or “he asked” as to keep up the story's momentum. The exchange between the old man and the boy feels so compact and quick that it makes the reader feel as if he or she is listening to the dialogue as if it was spoken rather than reading the dialogue as it was written.

Likewise, most of the sentences throughout the book are simple and declarative as to give a direct representation of what occurs within the story without any of the narrator's opinion or subjectivity. This makes the entire book feel much more natural and organic, as if the author based the book on real people, events, and places. Another example of this prose is:
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. … he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on. He urinated outside the shack and then went up the road to wake the boy. He was shivering with the morning cold. (24)
In the perspective of conventional fiction writing, this passage is considered poorly and lazily structured as it is highly repetitive with the early continuation of 'nor of' and by every sentence always beginning with the word 'he'. However, the organization was deliberately structured this way because it gives the passage a sense of rhythm that one would experience if they were, in fact, the old man performing these actions. This was all done for the purpose of making the entire story seem authentic. Hemingway was clear on that purpose in an interview about the book, “I tried to make a real old man, a real sea and real sharks” The repetition evokes the sense of writing that is similar to that of Hemingway's early journalism.

This sense of authenticity Hemingway achieves is also expressed though the details in which he purposefully includes. As the old man observes sails through the water, the narrator describes the aesthetic of the sea:
The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with the gray blue hills behind it. The water was a dark blue now, so dark that it was almost purple. As he looked down into it he saw the red sifting of the plankton in the dark water and the strange light the sun made now. (34)
The choice of words in this selection is so vivid and precise, in terms of motion and color, that it strongly suggests that the words came from someone who has had first-hand experience with fishing and boating and therefore makes the reader feel as though what they are reading has actually happened.

What is striking about Hemingway's deliberate use of detail is that, while most creative writers rely on intuition as opposed to how newspaper correspondents rely on sensory details, Hemingway was both a fiction writer and a newspaper correspondent. Therefore, Hemingway's prose provides a unique blend of intuitive and sensory-driven writing that allows him to use specific, natural details within his story to lead the reader to understand the story's greater purpose.

While Hemingway is precise and tactical about the detailed information that he includes, he is
more renowned for the information that he excludes. Throughout various parts of the book, there exists a vague recurring symbol regarding the old man's dreams about lions. It is referenced near the beginning of the book, before the old man sets off to sea, “He only dreamed of … the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them...” (24), in the middle of the book, “I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the lions, he thought.”(65), and also as the ending sentence of the book, “The old man was dreaming about the lions. ”(125) Even though the lions are an important symbol regarding the meaning of the book, it is never explained why the symbol is so important and what the symbol even represents. Its explanation was intentionally excluded from the book so that its interpretation is left up to the reader. The omission of concepts like this creates holes in the story, and the reader is supposed to use their imagination and feelings about the story to fill in those holes.
The vagueness of the lion symbol is an excellent example of what is known as Iceberg Theory.

The name of the theory derives from the fact that only a small portion of an iceberg is what one can see above water; water submerges the large majority of the iceberg. Followers of this theory, like Hemingway, believe that fiction should be told in the same manner as an iceberg, where the sensory detail within a story is only a small portion of a bigger picture that can not be seen nor touched, but felt through the emotions and events driving the characters. Another example of this was at the near end of the book, “Then he lay down on the bed. He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.” (120-121) This passage eloquently describes the feeling of the trial and fatigue that the old man has just gone through. However, it achieves this without once referring to the fact that the old man was tired or fatigued at all. Through the actions of the old man and specific details like carelessly sleeping on newspapers, the reader can understand the character's emotion and the purposes driving those emotions without the author ever stating them to the reader. Hemingway clarifies this purpose of exclusion in another one of his books, Death in the Afternoon, “The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” He then goes on to say that, “If a writer ... knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated

them.”

Ernest Hemingway's Iceberg Theory's perfectly represents the mannerism of an iceberg. Through the use of concision, unbiased narration, and the omission of conceptual ideas, a writer can strengthen his or her story through the higher imagination and natural intuition of the reader. Sometimes, the most personal, emotional, and important ideas conceived in life can not be described – only felt.