OnErnestHemingway’sIcebergStyle-精选资料

1、On Ernest HemingwaysIceberg Style: Hemingway is a great stylist and one of the most important writers of the 20th-century America. His influence is world-wide and his distinctive writing style- the “Iceberg Style ” even caused a stylistic revolution in the field of literature all over theworld.Hemin

2、gway always tries his best to avoid using kinds of ways to depict things or piling big words and gorgeous adjectives.On the contrary, he always adopts direct description and short sentences which are precise, laconic, bright and vivid.Therefore, his“Iceberg Principle” isalso called“Telegraphic Style

3、 ”. His writing style onlyserves his particular characters and theme. The uniqueness of Hem in gways “ Iceberg Style ” will be emphasized in this paper.Admittedly, Ernest Hemingway was a great stylist and one of the most important writers of the 20th century America. In 1954 Hemingwayreceived the Sw

4、edish Academys Nobel Prize for literature,“for his powerfulstyle-forming mastery of the art of modern narration, asHismost re cently evinced in The Old Man and the Sea .“Iceberg Style ” even caused a stylistic revolution in the field of literature all over the world. So many critics comment on Hemin

5、gways “adventure ” or “representative of the Lost Generation ”, The uniqueness of Hemingways “Iceberg Style ” will be emphasized in this essay.Hemingway was unique for his writing style, which he described as “Iceberg Principle ” in a Paris Review interview after the publication of The Old Manand th

6、e Sea. According to Hemingway, he “always tries to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eights of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn t show. ” He advocates that a goodwriter sho

7、uld catch “ the whiteness of the bone”, thatis to say, one should try his best to use simple and specific words to express the theme or depict the characters when writing a novel.Hemingways “Iceberg Style ” is unique in several aspects:First of all, it is well known for its“TelegraphicCharacteristic

8、 ”. A “Telegraphic Style ” is such awriting style that there should be no mentions of “I” or “me”, and only minimal use of articles. In other words, a “Telegraphic Style ” means that one wi ll choose brief and clear words instead of those big and gorgeous ones. Hemingway always adopts direct descrip

9、tion and short sentences which are precise, laconic, bright and vivid. All this owes to his experience as a reporter. Long time s news reporter s work contributed to his growth in literature. His terseness and accuracy had some in common with the language used in news report.By adopting the “telegra

10、phic writing style”,Hemingway is good at portraying the characterspsychology. In A farewell to Arms，when Catherine was inthe delivery room, her lover Henry struggled in his mind, “What if she should die? She wont die? She wont die?She cant? She can t die why would she die?But what if she die?She can

11、t die? But what if she should die?What if she should die? ” (Hemingway, 1994) Using very simple words and sentences, the author depicts Henrys feeling of being upset and anxious very vividly.Besides, another unique feature forHemingways “Iceberg Styleis that he usually adoptsan open ending when fini

12、shing a story. This kind of open ending is different from other writerscarefully-designed, well-made ones. A Hemingway style ending seems always ended when it is still halfway, which makes the reader feel that the story is to be continued and the writer does finish it deliberately. The author omits

13、the heroes destiny and let the readers imagine it by themselves. Here is Hemingway s “Iceberg Style ” ending Zero Ending. With this“Zero Ending ”,Heimingway leaves readers insuspense and cleverly avoidscommitting himself to any conclusion. This delibiberate avoidance from making judgment and explana

14、tion renders the story even more intriguing.Lets take the ending of The Old Man and the Sea as an example. In the end, “Up the road in his shack, the old man was sleeping again .He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions. ”

15、 (Hemingway, 1994) Santiago was sleeping soundly. Then, when would he wake up ? Would he still go fishing after his waking up? Different readers will have different conclusions, just like “one thousand Hamlets in the eyes of one thousand readers ”. HemingwaysHills Like White Elephant is another good

16、 example. In this story, Hemingway does not tell readers directly what the characters think and feel in the end. Instead, he only reports their conversations in a journalistic manner and makes readers read between lines, fill the information gap by themselves and draw conclusions on their own. This

17、kind of ending form of Hemingways fictions is also one of his strategies to achieve his “Iceberg Principle ”, and he can “gain more while using very little” by using a “ZeroEnding”.Furthermore, the moderate use of symbolism is also a dazzling feature of Hemingways ”Iceberg Theory ” Notonly the plots

18、, theme, but also the passage have the features of emphatic symbolism. Hemingway s Hills Like White Elephants describes the young man s complicated feeling before taking his girlfriend to the abortion operation Hemingway enabled readers to detect the heavy burden through the talk between the young m

19、an and her girlfriend instead of mentioning any word about it. And “White elephant ” used in the title of this story means “heavy burden ” in English Here， although the girl s pregnancy signifiesthe love between thetwo ，it may bring “heavy burden” to life in future (espec - ially the girl s life) Al

20、so ，in A Farewell to Arms ，“ arms” not only means”weapon”， but also means “hug”Many people attempt to imitate Hemingways uniq uewriting style, but fewones get great achievements. Maybe the most important reason for their failure is that they didn t make enough studies on the relations between form a

21、nd co- ntent of Hemingway s works. Hemingway s unique writing style only severs his particular characters ? Hemingway Heroes. The typical Hemingway hero is a man of action and of few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under c

22、ontrol, stoicand self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness. Only for such kind of characters, can Hemingways “IcebergStyle ” be made the fullest use of.In conclusion, in a sense, Hemingway is a world famous craftsman for his unique writing style characterized by short and

23、terse sentences, simple diction. Hemingway, to a certain extent, wiped out the demarcation line between journalism and literature. This laconic but expressive style Hemingway evolved on the basis of hisbelief that “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one eighth of it being above water ” was well suited to evoke the stoical courage of his characteristic subjects: menwho face lonely and thankness tasks. Although t