从《老人与海》中谈海明威的冰山理论(英文)

Abstract: As a writing style, Iceberg Theory appears in Hemingway’s works firstly and this theory is perfectly embodied in the novel The Old Man and the Sea. This paper attempts to discuss the use of Iceberg Theory in the novel. Firstly, it gives a brief introduction of Hemingway and the achievement of The Old Man and the Sea. Then it analyzes the characteristics of the Iceberg Theory, and its impact on literary world. Secondly, in simplicity and symbolism, a large number of examples are supplemented to discuss and analyze the unique expression of the Iceberg Theory in Hemingway’s works. Thirdly, the paper discusses the great impacts of Iceberg Theory on Hemingway’s literary creation and American literary history. This research is of great significance to the study of Hemingway’s writing style.

Key words: Iceberg Theory; Simplicity; Symbolism
 
摘  要：冰山原则作为一种写作风格最早出现在美国小说家海明威的作品中。并在他的作品《老人与海》里得到了较好的体现。本文试图从三个方面分析冰山原则在《老人与海》中的体现：一、简介海明威的身平与其作品《老人与海》的文学成就，通过《老人与海》来分析冰山理论的特点、构成以及它对文坛的影响；二、从冰山原则的简约性和象征主义两个方面，辅以大量的例证，探讨与分析冰山原则在《老人与海》中的表现形式；三、论述冰山原则对海明威的文学创作的影响及冰山原则在整个美国文坛的地位和对整个美国文坛的影响。本文研究对于进一步了解海明威的写作风格有着积极的意义。

关键词：冰山理论；简约性；象征主义；
Introduction
The Old Man and the Sea comes round at the finish of Hemingway’s writing career. With its vivid characterization, its simple language, and the skilled use of Iceberg Theory it carries, it stands out as one of the excellent books in Hemingway’s literature creation. The Old Man and the Sea earned the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1952, which pushed Hemingway’s literary career to the peak.
The characteristic of Iceberg is that people just see one-eighth of it which floating on the sea, which means the rest under the water is more significant. It is also means that the meanings of the words are more important than the words itself. As Hemingway said: “ if a writer of the 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.” [1] The writer should tell people signification by simple expression. Hemingway’s language is simple and natural on the surface, but actually deliberate and artistic. Both simplicity and symbolism are two points of Hemingway’s language. Symbolism is always an eternal and controversial topic in The Old Man and the Sea. In literature, a symbol is a thing that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention or accidental resemblance, especially, a visible sign of something invisible. A symbol generally dose not stands for anything absolutely definite. It evokes an object that suggests the meaning. We know that symbolism is a very important writing style in The Old Man and the Sea. But Hemingway held a quite different attitude towards experts and critics. He once points out that a story truly told could mean many things. But at the same time he reaffirmed, “there is not any symbolism, the sea is the sea; the old man is an old man; the boy is the boy and the fish is a fish; the sharks are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”[2] Personally, the reader has to take Hemingway’s own view on symbolism into consideration when he tries to give an interpretation because only he himself knows exactly what he wanted to say when he wrote this story.