Hemingway's Iceberg Theory Analysis

Ernest Hemingway had been an exquisite writer since the early to mid 1900’s. With an upbringing of a hard-working man who had been a journalist in World War 1 and loved to travel. He suffered from many injuries later in his life, but pushed through it. From it all, this created a strong man and writer with extremely meaningful, and well-known pieces. Hemingway fought through extreme obstacles to become what he always desired, a writer; as seen in his struggles of war, women, and mental illness. All of these issues in his life, made him a strong and heartfelt writer, who left an impact of great pieces to be read for centuries to come.

The words and works of an author are like a fingerprint. They are unique, distinct and enable you to identify the owner. Some writers choose to remodel techniques, while others choose to create their own. This is the case with Ernest Hemingway. I chose this author because he not only respects his audience but, trusts them to discover the true meanings of his works. Between each line and word is an emotion and purpose that transcends the dialogue. The former reporters roots have caused him to create his own style of writing now coined as “The Iceberg Theory”. This direct, minimalistic style leaves and enduring impression on the reader and has made his writing instantly recognizable. In Hemingway’s works, the dialogue brilliantly executed technique subtly exposes the reader to his theme that revel dark parts of the human psyche when it comes to war, love and humanity.

The word "iceberg" is most likely a Dutch term "ijsberg," which translates to ice mountain; only one-eighth of the mass can be seen above the surface of the water ("Iceberg Facts"). Iceberg also refers to a theory/style of writing which Ernest Hemingway was famous for. “Now I Lay Me” is a short story written about a religious man during war who refuses to fall asleep for fear of death and the dark. At least that is the surface version of the story. However, like the iceberg, the seven-eighths of the story “Now I Lay Me” is below the surface forming a deeper perspective which leads the reader to the hidden heart of the story. Hemingway wrote the short story after his bout in the war. In “Now I Lay Me,” Hemingway effectively utilizes the

Ernest Hemingway’s semi-fictional short story The Nick Adams Stories chronicles the life of Nick Adams, a complex character whose life progresses from infantile innocence to a mature cynical existence. The stories unfold analogous to an iceberg; the real meaning is cryptic and lies just beneath the surface. Hemingway uses this iceberg analogy in the section “A Soldier Home” with images and symbols to convey a deeper meaning. In this section, Adams is returning home after the war and is still recovering from its atrocities. He has experienced many traumatic things while at war, so nothing seems innocent to him anymore. Throughout this section, Adams is recuperating and longs for a semblance of a normal life to find peace.

Hemingway chose a unique approach to his story. Many short stories are filled with formal speech. However, Hemingway presented to us his story, without using exquisite words or elongated sentences. His writing was direct and minimal, but also precise. The author allowed us to create our own environment, by playing off common experiences in everyday life. By doing that he produced an atmosphere that can easily be fashioned and manipulated by the reader in order to create a relatable surrounding.

Hemingway’s writing career began at Oak Park and River Forest High School, where he had several articles published in the school newspaper. Like Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis, after high school young Ernest started his career as a journalist. He went to work for the Kansas City Star. Although he only stayed there for six months, his lifelong writing style was based on the guidelines contained in their style book - short sentences, short first paragraphs, vigorous English, and a positive attitude.

Ernest Hemingway was considered by the general population, an important figure in twentieth-century American writing. He is most known for his books A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea. All through his career, he got both critical and famous acclaim for his books, stories, and poems. In light of his ceaseless rising fame from his books or individual life, his public image once in awhile. Be that as it may, he was still respected for the enhancing of his general assemblage of work by intensely recounting from his experience as a major gamer seeker, a bullfight enthusiast, and as deep-sea fisherman. He additionally has credited that the music lessons his mom demanded him to take as a kid were valuable to his written work (Scribner Laidlaw 2).

Hemingway wrote in a basic, direct, simple style. Many people believe this is attributed to the fact that he was a newspaper writer and was taught to display the facts of a story in a crisp, short manner. Hemingway used a method called the iceberg principal, keeping his compositions direct and bare. Hemingway was considered a master of dialogue, ironically he failed at his attempt at being a play write. Conversations between the characters Hemingway writes about are not just about the words they say, but also the conversational limits.

Ernest Hemingway has this uncanny, yet, clear and distinctive writing style, that has made him a successful author and a means of many criticisms. One critic in particular, David M. Wyatt, says that Hemingway has a way of making the beginning of his stories “raise the very specter of the end against which they are so concerned to defend.” (Wyatt). In his two short stories, “Hills Like White Elephants” and “A Clean-Well Lighted Place, Hemingway draws out this uncanny effect in anticipating the sense of an ending. He paints this very minimalistic style, “only centering on surface elements without giving explicit content of the underlying themes”(Wyatt) he creates. He wants readers to depict what’s below the surface, letting the crux emit through.

Hemingway was known specifically for his minimalistic, grade school type writing. From his works, the iceberg principle emerged and it became a famous signature in his many written masterpieces. According to this principle, the basic reasoning behind it is the fact that very few words, as little as there can be, can have an impressive amount of significance hiding underneath the surface. Much like an iceberg, there is a whole other side to what is initially shown and his words make the reader dig deeper to fully understand the text as a whole. A good example of this is when Hemingway was challenged by a friend to write a story in under ten words. It resulted in a very short six word sentence, "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." The shortest

Ernest Hemingway was among many of the few authors who could leave readers reflecting upon the story they have just read as well as their own lives with few words. This impact he has left is often seen in the six word story he is often credited to having written, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” (Wortman para. 1). The work is a piece of flash fiction, as well as a famous example of his “iceberg theory” or “theory of omission,” which entailed “omitting parts of a story, details that the writer and reader both inherently know” to “forms a stronger bond with the reader because the author has confidence that the reader is knowledgeable and intuitive enough to pick up on the pieces that were omitted,” according to the article, “The ‘Iceberg Theory’

Throughout the semester, we have learned about an author with many themes about reality in all of his works. The author is known as Ernest Hemingway. A writer with many talents, and in fact a notable Nobel prize winner for his works. His works include: A Farewell to Arms, In Our Time, A Moveable Feast, and so on. However, how did Hemingway create good stories? To answer that, we have to look back to his beginnings. Hemingway was born in 1899 in America, as he got older his career opened up to him. His writing career began as the Nobel Prize tells us, when he was “a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen” (Nobel Media). This is one of the first instances of his writing, which would later become his passion. Outside

Have you ever had to ask yourself “Do I really want an abortion ?” 954,000 americans asked themselves that question in 2014, and through lots of discussion went through it and had an abortion. Many more people wavered over this decision. A decision that could immensely change the course of their life forever. No story puts this intricate and tense discussion more subtly and discreetly as “Hills like white Elephants.” The story “hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway uses the iceberg theory to prove that his story is talking about abortion, he does this in many clever ways including metaphors, the characters actions, the characters language, and hints about an operation.

It is “Hills Like White Elephants” that adequately depicts Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory”. It is not what is stated explicitly, but what is not said that is important. Nearly every aspect of “Hills Like White Elephants” can be interpreted to mean something else. From the train tracks to the hills, the felt pads have even been considered as an allusion to the pads used to soak up

Ernest Hemingway’s grandson, Sean, refers to his grandfather’s writing style in his introduction to this edition of A Farewell to Arms. This writing style was dubbed “the iceberg method”. This theory is best described as the omission of unnecessary, superlative language. This may be a minor omission, such as the words “he said” at the end of dialogue, to major information in the character’s motivations. “Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from the surface story, rather, the crux of the story lies below the surface and should be allowed to shine through”(Hemingway XIX).