a study on theory of iceberg in the old man and the sea by earnest hemingway = nghiên cứu về nguyên lý tảng băng trôi trong tác phẩm ông già và biển cả của ernerst hemingway

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES **************** HÁN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC A STUDY ON ICEBERG THEORY I

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

****************

HÁN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC

A STUDY ON ICEBERG THEORY IN

“THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA” BY

EARNEST HEMINGWAY

già và biển cả” của Earnest Hemingway)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

****************

HÁN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC

A STUDY ON ICEBERG THEORY IN

“THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA” BY

EARNEST HEMINGWAY

(Nghiên cứu nguyên lý Tảng băng trôi trong tác phẩm “Ông

già và biển cả” của Earnest Hemingway)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Acknowledgement ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Design of the study 4

5 Methods of the study 4

4 Scope of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical background 1.1.1 Discourse and Critical discourse analysis 6

1.1.2 Literary style 8

1.1.3 Language use 9

1.2 Analytical background 1.2.1 Introduction to “The Old Man and the Sea” 11

1.2.1.1 Plot overview 13

1.2.1.2 Themes in “The Old Man and the Sea” 13

1.2.1.3 Setting of „The Old Man and the Sea” 13

1.2.1.4 Characters in “The Old Man and the Sea” 15

1.2.2 Hemingway‟s Iceberg Theory 15

1.2.2.1 Introduction to the Theory 16

1.2.2.2 Features of Hemingway‟s Iceberg Theory 17

CHAPTER 2 THEORY OF ICEBERG IN THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA 2.1 The above part of the iceberg 121

2.2 The hidden part and its components 22

2.2.1 Setting 24

2.2.2 Characters 25

2.3 Literary devices for Iceberg theory 2.3.1 Language style 26

2.3.2 Narrator style 27

2.3.3 Characters‟ discourse 29

2.3.4 Symbolism 31

2.3.4.1 The character Santiago 32

2.3.4.2 The marlin 34

2.3.4.3 The sharks 35

2.3.4.4 The sea 36

2.3.4.5 The lions 37

2.3.4.6 The mast 38

PART C CONCLUSION 1 Summary 40

2 Limitations 41

3 Suggestions for further study 42

REFERENCES 43

PART A INTRODUCTION

This initial part stated the problem and the retionale of the study, together with the aims, objectives, the scope of the study, and the overview of the rest of this paper Above all, it was in this part that the research questions were identified to work as clear guidelines for the whole research

1 Rationale of the study

Earnest Hemingway (1899 - 1961), also known as ―Papa‖, occupies a prominent place in American Literature by virtue of his revolutionary role in the arena of 20thcentury American fiction The period 1940-1950 was perhaps the bleakest ten

years in Hemingway‘s writing career when his last major work ―Across the River

and into the Trees”, which he considered his best work ever, met with severe

negative criticism of unintentional self-parody However, the publication of the

next work, The Old Man and the Sea, in one edition of Life magazine in 1950 was

an instant success Some viewed the story as Hemingway‘s symbolic attack on literary critics—the elderly master fighting and triumphing over his long-time adversaries The novella soared to the top of the best-seller list and remained there for six months At first glance, the story appears to be an extremely simple story of

an old Cuban fisherman (Santiago), who catches an enormously large fish then

loses it again But, there's much more to the story than that ―The Old Man and the

Sea” helped to revive Hemingway's reputation as a writer of great acclaim This

slim volume won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and also contributed enormously to Hemingway's recognition as a world-renowned writer with the award of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 As a writer, Hemingway became known for his predominant them of "grace under pressure." This theme was clearly developed in the character Santiago who fought the giant fish and killed it against all odds; it also characterized Hemingway‘s own life until the point in his life when he felt he was no longer able to demonstrate grace under pressure

The Old Man and the Sea is believed to be Hemingway's best work, and no less

than William Faulkner (1977) said, "Time may show it to be the best single piece

of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries” It ranked one of the best-known

books and it was also taught at school This classic novella proves to be a read for those who are interested in Hemingway‘s literary work as well as his legacy to American literature

Moreover, as the last piece of writing Hemingway published in his life, The Old

Man and the Sea typically reflects his unique writing style Hemingway language

in The Old Man and the Sea is simple and natural on the surface, but actually

deliberate and artificial The language is rarely emotional Rather, it controls emotions by holding them in Theory of Iceberg, the most notable in Hemingway‘s writing style, is also reflected clearly in this novel The "Iceberg Theory" can be explained as such: If a writer is worth anything, and is actually going to create a piece of art in words, he must follow this theory The author's short story must omit items that are obvious or are already stated by metaphors, similes, or some other figures of speech The author should do this to the point where the reader must think, understand, and really delve into the character and the words that are used to understand the entire story In this way the words on the page are merely 1/8 of the story itself, it is the other 7/8 that the story truly lives in Moreover, Hemingway's Iceberg theory highlights the symbolic implications of art He makes use of physical action to provide an interpretation of the nature of man's existence

It can be convincingly proved that, "while representing human life through

fictional forms, he has consistently set man against the background of his world and universe to examine the human situation from various points of view."

novels of the author, it sets an excellent illustration of his writing principle and literary ideology

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This study aims at analyzing Hemingway‘s Theory of Iceberg in The Old Man and

the Sea As the greatest principle of Hemingway‘s writing style, the theory

provides readers an obvious overlook of the writer‘s literary career In terms of art value, the answer to this matter would help the student of Linguistics, the novel‘s readers as well as those who wished to specialized in American Literature realize what made Hemingway one of the most successful authors in literature arena

In terms of reality value, understanding Theory of Iceberg could help readers discover the story‘s purpose through some underlying principle nit readily apparent in the text Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from the surface story because the crux of the story lies below the surface This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway's favorite motifs

of physical and moral challenge If a younger Hemingway had written this novella, Santiago most likely would have towed the enormous fish back to port and posed for a triumphal photograph just as the author delighted in doing Instead his prize gets devoured by a school of sharks Returning with little more than a skeleton, he takes to his bed and, in the very last line, cements his identification with his

creator: "The old man was dreaming about the lions." The tale of The Old Man

and the Sea is obviously a hymn to human courage and endurance

As a linguistic student, the researcher expected to find out and briefly analyze the

significance of language used in The Old Man and the Sea exposing Hemingway‘s

striking writing style The finding of this would help the students of linguistics , the novel‘s readers as well as those who wish to specialized in American Literature realize what made Hemingway one of the most influential authors of the century

3 Research questions

The general goal of this research is to look into Hemingway‘s Theory of Iceberg in The Old Man and the Sea which can at least partly contribute to findings in literary appreciation and reading comprehension To this end, this research tries to answer the following questions:

1 What is Hemingway‘s Theory of Iceberg?

2 How is the Theory revealed in The Old Man and the Sea?

3 What can be withdrawn from the surface of the story?

4 Design of the study

This paper is organized in the following way:

Part One presents a general introduction of the research containing the rationale, aims and objectives, methodology and scope of the study Part Two gives a theoretical and analytical background for the study Part Three goes into details about Iceberg Theory in the novel with an emphasis on the hidden part of the iceberg The conclusion can be found in Part Four, which includes a summary, limitations of the research as well as suggestions for further study

5 Methods of the study

Descriptive and contextual methods of data collecting and analyzing are used in the research

First, relevant literature, publications and studies were reviewed in order to get depth information on Hemingway‘s writing style in general and Theory of Iceberg

in-in particular Also country specific in-information on the organic horticultural sector was reviewed Second, the researcher analyzes and agglutinates those ideas into her own comprehensible viewpoints Finally, the information was analyzed and processed Evidence is taken from the story and analyzed based on the researcher‘s knowledge to put a light on how Hemingway used Theory of Iceberg

in his novel

6 Scope of the study

The study focuses on how Hemingway exposed his striking writing style in The

Old Man and the Sea To find the answer to the question, full attention was paid to

the conversations between characters, the symbolic images and the mood flow of the characters

The researcher also placed great emphasis on the language used in the novel In

The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway practiced his familiar short and concrete

language but filled with emotions In contrast to Romantic writers who often emphasize on abundance, Hemingway is a classicist in his restraint and understatement He believes that the strongest effect comes with an economy of means Therefore, understanding Hemingway‘s writing style can help readers draw valuable lessons in reading comprehension

PART B DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1 Literature Review 1.1 Theoretical Background

There were several key terms: discourse and critical discourse analysis, literary style and language use, which needed to be deeply understood So for the purpose

of providing a clear and deep understanding of the matter, this first chapter would focus on the definitions of those key terms while mentioning some necessary

information about previous studies that related to the matter of the study

1.1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis

Through centuries, 'discourse' was defined in various ways by a number of scholars and their discussions became an art, which drew a lot of attention from the later authors

‗Discourse‘ was 'stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and

purposive' (Cook 1989:156)

‗Discourse‘ was considered 'a communicative event which draws on the meaning

potential of the language (and other systems of communication) to carry communicative value (the illocutionary force) of speech acts through utterances

In other words, it referred to “the interpretation of communicative events in

context.” (Nunan 1993:7-8)

It could be said that there were no significant differences between those definitions since the notion of ‗discourse‘ was all about how the language use was understood

in such verbal events

Sharing a lot in common with Malinowski, linguists (Hymes, 1960s; Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Grice, 1975; and Halliday and Hasan, 1973, 1978, 1989, 1994) had

drawn certain attention to this branch by clarifying some “contextual, grammar

and cohesional models as well as pragmatic and conversational viewpoints”,

which were very clear and essential

However, at the limitation of the minor thesis, the researcher wanted to focus on

the role of contextual analysis in the three major discourses for the reason that

'context' was created by the discourse and vice versa It was what and how people could depend on to interpret the discourses created in each context as Nunan (1993:7-8) cited that J.R Firth and Dell Hymes also appreciated the idea that people always reacted toward how they understood and predicted what the others were going to say next

More systematically and clearly than Malinowski, a great British anthropologist who significantly contributed in clarifying two types of ‗context‘: Context of

Situation and Context of Culture, Halliday (1989) developed a model of contextual analysis, just following the context of situation, which included three

components as followed:

Components of a

SITUATION

Feature of the context

Field of discourse what was happening, to the nature of the social action

that was taking place

Tenor of discourse Who were taking part in the situation

Mode of discourse The role assigned to language

Example 1:

A short conversation was given and analysed in Halliday and Hasan‘s theory (1989) as an example:

Doctor: Have you been vomiting?

Patient: Em, yeah I vomitted about … I vomitted twice … two days ago at school

and I vomitted about um eight or ten times last night

Patient: Oh, er, just sort of altogether, you know, Dr M gave him anti-biotic

capsules for him to take because he's also got …

Doctor: a throat

Patient: A bit of infected tonsils yeah and he said that, you know for him to spit

the capsule out … I don't know whether he was trying to swallow it down or what but he did

Doctor: Ah Look, I don't think you can go past an appendix there Just, you know,

number one, he's got no pain just there and is sore there and I think he's probably got something blocking in the appendix and it's giving him this constant pain and trouble So seeing that you've had it for some time and been worse lately I think it certainly would be wise to think about having done

(Halliday and Hasan,1989)

Analysis of Example 1

Components of a

Field A child-patient that influenced the choice of lexical items

Tenor A doctor and a patient

Mode The choice of lexical items: parts of the body: throat, tonsil,

appendix; bodily actions: vomit, spit, swallow

Example 2

A: Hi! I didn't know you belonged to the national Film Theatre Have you been a

member for long?

B: No, I joined only last week It's good, isn't it?

A: Yes, it is There's always an excellent selection of films here I'm just going to

get a coffee Would you like one?

B: I'm really thirsty Oh, don't forget that I've given up sugar

(Hoang Van Van Ph.D, 2006)

Analysis of Example 2

Components of a

SITUATION

Feature of the context

Field An informal conversation between friends in a cafeteria

Tenor Two friends

Mode Use of words related to theatre: film, member; cafeteria:

thirsty, coffee, sugar

In the field of Literature, no matter what the story was, the conversations might be

between or amongst people in a certain circumstance, but it was Mode that perfectly helped recognize and distinguish an author's literary style from others'

1.2 Literary style

Literary style was defined in various ways by a number of scholars

According to Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, Literary style referred to “linguistic

choice in general” or to ―those aspects of linguistic choice which concern alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter” (cited by Mitchell, A &

McGee, K 2011: 31-32)

Much more clearly in ―Linguistics and literary style‖ (1970), Donald C Freeman once clarified the literary style into some categories: sentence structure, pace, vocabulary, figures of speech, use of dialogue, tone, etc

Similarly with those scholars, David Watson in ‗The Elements of Style‘ (1915),

defined literary style as ―the translation of thought into language” This identification of the style surely did not fail in ―width and generality” In other

words, there was no doubt, as the widespread belief in the existence and the power

of something so called when words, sentences and voice were carefully chosen to

be the means or the medium of the garment of the certain processes of thought It gave a distinction to certain writers or compositions because even though it was not so easy to recognize an author‘s style, readers were still able to see her literary accent of a school, a nation or an age which could be clarified through the concrete whole form by means of a number of concrete parts

Although literary style was defined in various ways, it was known in conclusion as the element that described an author‘s choice of words, sentence structures, figurative language and the habit of correct grammar, arrangement of all her work together to establish mood, images and meaning of the text In the limitation of this minor study, the researcher would focus on three main elements, which were

known in the necessity of Mode in Halliday‘s theory, as David Watson (1915) and

Strunk W and White E.D (2000) once again agreed

1.2.1 Word choice

General speaking, nouns and verbs were the main medium, which helped readers visualize and convey the meanings of a novel, and a novel writer was said to be good only if she knew when to choose or weed out the words concisely and

precisely It should be words which were “active verbs, concrete nouns and

specific adjectives” (cited in ‗The Elements of Style‘, 2000)

1.2.2 Sentence fluency

Easily seen in well-known novels that readers mostly were attracted by a variety

of sentences with different lengths and rhythms which was called “the flow and

rhythm of phrases and sentences”; in other words, it was ‗Sentence fluency‘ All

the ideas were carefully considered, chosen and then arranged in various structures

to reflect the main themes of the novel They were not like in speaking when people could not rethink or revise the ideas for effect To make the sentences fluent, sounding like an own style, the writer would re-choose the words, delete redundancies, make vague or ambiguous words much clearer to convey the

greatest effect as possible

1.2.3 Voice

Lord Chesterfield once shared: “Style is the dress of thoughts”; and Literary style

was most clearly defined by an author‘s voice Although voice was difficult to be drastically measured, it was the essential element that revealed the writer‘s personality to the extreme; and in ‗Pride and Prejudice‘, Jane Austen was

successful in portraying characters with a great sense of irony

“Irony is a form of utterance that postulated a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that,

when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more and of the outsiders’ comprehension” (Fowler 1968, 305)

In those hidden language, actions, differences and communications, irony was seen as an art or a means of worth and effective persuasion in speeches when it allowed people to convey the meaning above what was said As Socrates (cite by Colebrook, 2004) once implied, irony was used by saying one thing and meaning

another which resulted in an insistence Irony was believed to bring about ―truth

and recognition” even if that truth was hard to be recognized and not fully

meaningful

1.3 Language use

Language use was said to be ―the people’s production and understanding of a set

of sentences with particular meanings‖ (Clark, 1993) In other words, the choice

of words had to be suitable for each communication circumstance so as to express different meanings, those needed to be clarified and deeply understood in order to keep up with the chains of following activities In those activities the speakers said and took actions by using words whilst the others had to coordinate with them in trying to comprehend what they meant

1.2 Analytical Background

1.2.1 Introduction to The Old Man and the Sea

1.2.1.1 Plot Overview

Plot is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as

they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect An intricate, complicated plot is called an imbroglio, but even the simplest statements of plot may include multiple inferences

The Old Man and the Sea is undoubtedly Hemingway‘s masterpiece, winning the

Pulitzer Prize in 1953 It is a simple story about an old poor fisherman Santiago and his battle with a great marlin For 84 days Santiago does not catch a single fish but he does not feel discouraged He goes far into the sea again and hooks a giant marlin In a desperate struggle, Santiago manages to kill the fish and tie it to his boat, only to find that on the way home he has to fight a more desperate struggle with some dangerous giant sharks which eat up the marlin, leaving only a skeleton The old man brings it home and goes to bed to dream again The struggle leaves him with exhaustion but wins him much respect among the villagers

1.2.1.2 Themes in The Old Man and the Sea

Theme is an idea or concept that is central to a story A theme may be exemplified

by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of the characters in a novel

Within a simple plot about an old poor fisherman, Hemingway praises the themes

of human pride and honor over struggle, defeat and death A heroic man like

Santiago should have pride in his actions, and as Santiago shows us, "humility was

not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride" (14) At the same, though, it is

apparently Santiago's pride which presses him to travel dangerously far out into

the sea, "beyond all people in the world," to catch the marlin (50) While he loved

the marlin and called him brother, Santiago admits to killing it for pride, his blood

stirred by battle with such a noble and worthy antagonist Some have interpreted the loss of the marlin as the price Santiago had to pay for his pride in traveling out

so far in search of such a catch Contrarily, one could argue that this pride was beneficial as it allowed Santiago an edifying challenge worthy of his heroism In the end, Hemingway suggests that pride in a job well done, even if pride drew one unnecessarily into the situation, is a positive trait

The story also underlines honor in struggle, defeat and death From the very first paragraph, Santiago is characterized as someone struggling against defeat He has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish—he will soon pass his own record

of eighty-seven days Almost as a reminder of Santiago‘s struggle, the sail of his

skiff resembles ―the flag of permanent defeat.‖ But the old man refuses defeat at

every turn: he resolves to sail out beyond the other fishermen to where the biggest fish promise to be He lands the marlin, tying his record of eighty-seven days after

a brutal three-day fight, and he continues to ward off sharks from stealing his prey, even though he knows the battle is useless In the very last sentences of the story,

though sleeping deadly with exhaustion, the old man is still ―dreaming about the

lions‖ As Santiago himself says, "Man is not made for defeat A man can be destroyed but not defeated" (103) The tale is a hymn to human courage and

endurance

1.2.1.3 Setting of The Old Man and the Sea

This short novel, as the title suggests, is mainly set on the sea over a period of three days The setting is important because marlin are found only in certain locations and the author needed a tropical location for the story, like the Gulf of Mexico

On land, the action takes place in a small village on the northern coast of Cuba, below the Tropic of Cancer and not far from the capital city of Havana Havana is the capital of Cuba and forms a distant background to Santiago‘s journey; he uses

the lights of the city to find his way back home at night A more important town in the novel is the little fishing village in which Santiago lives and where Spanish is spoken He seems to have based the village on a real one called Kojimar The warm waters of the Gulf Stream flow very close to this village, bringing the giant marlin in the months of September and October Santiago sets out on his momentous journey in the early fall, probably in September

The setting of the novel is very important because Hemingway writes about man‘s struggle, not a specific struggle of anyone During the course of the novel, the setting becomes symbolic; the sea represents the total universe against which humanity (represented by Santiago) is pitted and in which, everybody has to take a chance

1.2.1.4 Characters in The Old Man and the Sea

Santiago, the protagonist of the novella, is an elderly widowed Cuban fisherman whose ―luck‖ seems to have run out He has not caught anything in 84 days Santiago is humble in his dealings with others, yet takes great pride in his work and himself, and is frustrated and embarrassed by his failures He views his aging body as a kind of betrayer, and fondly remembers his younger days, when he was exceptionally strong and a successful fisherman Other than fishing, Santiago‘s greatest joys are the time he spends with his former apprentice, Manolin, and the time he spends talking about baseball, and, in particular, his favorite player, the

―great DiMaggio.‖ Besides Manolin, Santiago considers his only friends to be the sea, the fish, and the stars In his conquest over the marlin, Santiago exhibits exceptional determination and endurance in the face of physical and psychological pain Although he loses the marlin to sharks, the entire struggle constitutes a spiritual triumph in which Santiago emerges as a Christ figure

Manolin is an adolescent Cuban boy who has fished with Santiago since he was a child Manolin is Santiago‘s devoted apprentice He cares for Santiago in his old age, and encourages him in his fishing even though Manolin‘s parents have forced Manolin to seek out a ―luckier‖ employer He is Santiago‘s only human friend, and looks up to Santiago as a mentor and father-figure Manolin exemplifies traits

of fidelity, selflessness and compassion He accepts hard work happily, never complaining

The marlin – The giant, 18-foot fish that battles with Santiago in the middle of the ocean for three days and three nights Although Santiago hooks the marlin on his first afternoon at sea, the marlin refuses to come to the surface and pulls Santiago farther and farther from land Santiago admires the marlin‘s beauty and endurance, and considers it a ―noble‖ adversary and a brother, telling the fish repeatedly that though he loves him, he must kill him

The shovel-nosed sharks – Scavengers and little more than swimming appetites, the shovel-nosed sharks are Santiago‘s fiercest antagonists Although Santiago manages to kill most of them, they tear apart the marlin‘s body and leave Santiago devastated While the marlin is portrayed as both an adversary and a noble companion to Santiago, the sharks are portrayed as purely vicious

Pedrico – Another fisherman in Santiago‘s village, Pedrico makes fish traps Santiago gives him the marlin‘s head at the end of the novella in gratitude for supplying him with newspapers that report the baseball scores

Martin – The owner of the seaside café, the Terrace, where Santiago and other fisherman eat Martin provides Santiago with meals during his unlucky streak

1.2.2 Hemingway‟s Theory of Iceberg

1.2.2.1 Introduction to Iceberg Theory

An iceberg has 1/8 above the water, the rest is hidden under the surface Therefore, what people see is only a small part of what an iceberg really is Hemingway compares his creation to an iceberg and use ―Iceberg theory‖ of

―Theory of Omission‖ to summarize his art style

―If a writer of prose knows enough about 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 The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing‖ (Death in the afternoon, 1932)

Hemingway began his writing career as a reporter Journalistic writing, particularly for newspapers, focuses only on events being reported, omitting superfluous and extraneous matter When he became a writer of short stories, he retained this minimalistic style, focusing on surface elements without explicitly discussing the underlying themes Hemingway believes the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from the surface because the crux of the story often lies below The Iceberg Theory can be explained as such: The author must omit items that are obvious or are already stated by metaphors, similes or some other figures of speech The author must do this to the point where the readers must think and understand the characters, the words to understand the entire story Hemingway keeps 7/8 of his meaning unwritten for the readers to decipher from the 1/8 that he is writing Actually, by omitting certain parts of a story, the writer strengthens that story He must be conscious of the omission and

be writing true enough in order for readers to sense the omitted parts When they can, a greater perception and understanding of the story can be achieved

1.2.2.2 Features of Hemingway‟s Iceberg Theory

Hemingway‘s style includes the use of short, choppy sentences that are descriptive and have underlying meanings that are integral to the work Hemingway uses this technique, the iceberg, to portray meaning and depth to a character without

directly stating what the reader should be thinking The iceberg technique allows readers to use their intelligence to figure out Hemingway‘s underlying meanings This writing style is effective because it involves the reader in the work by forcing the reader to dig beneath the layer of description and find the depth of the writing Hemingway‘s creativity and intelligence is shown through his knowledge of the human condition and his ability to write about people in a realistic way through the iceberg style Hemingway made his stories so short They are like icebergs, with a lot going on underneath the surface He revised his stories carefully, making them tighter and yet more suggestive with each version He packed a lot of meaning into a small amount of words

Iceberg Theory is applied in many of Hemingway‘s novels Besides The Old Man

and The Sea which is discussed in this paper, ―A Clean, Well Lighted Place‖

(1933) also sets an illustration It gives account of an old man and two waiters at a café Third person narration sticks only to readily discernible facts, allowing the reader to apply judgment of events and characters He includes only essential information, often omitting background information, transitions, and dialogue tags such as ―he said‖ or ―she said‖ He often uses pronouns without clear antecedents,

such as using the word it without clarifying what it refers to Hemingway also

rarely specifies which waiter is speaking in the story because he has deemed such clarification unnecessary The essential element is that two waiters are discussing

a drunk old man—the rest can be omitted according to Hemingway‘s economy of style When the older waiter contemplates the idea of nothingness, Hemingway

loads the sentences with vague pronouns, never clarifying what they refer to: ―It

was all a nothing It was only that Some lived in it ” Although these

lines are somewhat confusing, the confusion is the point This nothingness can’t

be defined clearly, no matter how many words are used Hemingway uses fewer words and lets the effect of his style speak for itself He is also often unclear who

is even speaking, leaving the reader to decide on their own

―Hills Like White Elephants‖ (1927) is another short story reflecting this theory It

is about an American couple waiting for a train to Madrid The plot of the story is not written in the prose The girl is pregnant and the couple are discussing an abortion The plot is only evident when the reader considers the setting, symbolism and dialogue The setting is incomplete at the beginning of the story but additional details sneak in slowly The author added trees to the distant hills in stark contrast to the barren area of the station He compared the white hills to

white elephants ―fields of grain and trees mountains [and] a cloud [moving]

across the field”(35) to provides the final demonstration of the fertility of the area

of the hills In the story, no meaningful dialogue occurs about the operation When

the man is contradictory, he says ―I think it’s the best thing to do But I don’t want

you to do it if you don’t really want to‖(34) The girl unfairly requests such as

―You won't ever worry‖(34) The dialogue ends with the action of the man rejecting

the girls suggestion to ―finish the beer‖(36) together after the bags are moved Symbolism is also applied The abortion is supported by the imagery of the barren train station contrasted with the fertile farmland in the distance When both the girl and the Catholic Church oppose the abortion, the man mysteriously walks through the ―rosary‖ beads near the end of the story The girls stresses inclusiveness in speech; reflecting her desire to include both the man and the unborn baby in her life while the man stresses independence in his speech; stressing the importance of not being tied down with a baby and possible not even the girl Until the end of the story, nothing is clear The reader is expected to decide from the clues the man and

girl's fate Did they return to Barcelona and ―have everything‖(35) as the main

finally passing through the ―rosary‖ beads implies? Did the man establish his independence from the girl as the solitary drink at the bar implies? Readers have

their own answers, as Hemingway said ―Read anything I write for the pleasure of

reading it Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading‖(Plimpton 128-29) -Ernest Hemingway