This paper aims to discuss the Iceberg Theory in The Old Man and the Sea. Of course, Hemingway has used many techniques in this novel, such as realism, the creation of suspense, monologue, etc. And this paper focuses especially on the Iceberg Theory and its great impacts on the literary creation.
1 Hemingway and Iceberg Theory
In this part, the author will give the introduction of Hemingway and the Iceberg Theory. Give the definition and characteristics of this write style.
1. 1 The introduction of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, nicknamed "Papa", he was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris known as "the Lost Generation". For a serious writer, he achieved a rare cult-like popularity during his lifetime.
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. His mother Grace Hall, whom he never forgave for dressing him as a little girl in his youth, had an operatic career before marrying Dr. Clarence Edmonds Hemingway; he taught his son to love out-door life. Hemingway's father took his own life in 1928. Hemingway attended the public schools in Oak Park and published his earliest stories and poems in his high school newspaper. Upon his graduation in 1917, Hemingway worked six months as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. He then joined a volunteer ambulance unit in Italy during World War I. In 1918 he suffered a severe leg wound. For his service, Hemingway was twice decorated by the Italian government. Hemingway's affair with an American nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, during his hospital recuperation gave basis for the novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). The tragic love story was filmed first time in 1932. After the war Hemingway worked for a short time as a journalist in Chicago. He moved to Paris in 1921, where he wrote articles for the Toronto Star. When he was not writing for the newspaper or for himself, Hemingway toured with his wife. In 1922 he went to Greece and Turkey to report on the war between those countries. In 1923 Hemingway made two trips to Spain, on the second to see bullfights at Pamplona's annual festival.
Hemingway’s style is related to his experience as a journalist, his learning from many famous writers, and most importantly, his conscientious effort in looking for a style of his own. And then the Iceberg Theory had great influence on almost his works. At the same time, his style was approbatory in the America even through all of the world.
Hemingway used the Iceberg theory in almost of his fictions, and it is no doubt that the use of the theory become more and more practiced and perfect, at last it reached the peak in The Old Man and the Sea. Apparently, the author was quite fond of this style and was attracted by it gradually. How Hemingway has formed such a writing style? The reason is related to his own experiences. “His use of short sentences and paragraphs and vigorous and positive language, and the deliberate avoidance of gorgeous adjectives are some of the traces of his early journalistic practices.” [5] After leaving school at 17, he went to the Kansas City Star, which was one of the best newspapers in America at that time. He served as its eager and energetic reporter. As a journalist, Hemingway trained himself in the economy of expression. He once said that, during his working in Star, he had to learn to use simple sentences, which is very useful to him; and that the experience of working as a journalist would not do harm to a young writer, instead it is very helpful if he could cast it off timely. He laid stress on “speaking” with facts and objected groundless concoction in writing. His descriptions of details are full of factuality, and are as precise as news reports. Occasionally, the author uses such figures of speech as metaphor, personification, etc to describe details. Hemingway likes to us natural things to make metaphors. For example, he describes Santiago’s eyes as “the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.” [6] The metaphor reveals that the old man is closely linked with nature. At the beginning of the novel, a simile is used: “the sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.” [7] Here Santiago’s eyes are contrasted with the patched sail, which symbolize defeat, as reveals Santiago’s unyielding character.
Hemingway's first books, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), of which he received no advance at all, and In Our Time (1924), were published in Paris. The Torrents Of spring appeared in 1926 and Hemingway's first serious novel, The Sun Also Rises, on the same year, which has narrated by an American journalist who deals with a group of expatriates in France and Spain. Hemingway wrote and rewrote the novel in various parts of Spain and France between 1924 and 1926. It became his first great success. Although Hemingway's language is simple, he used understatement and omission which make the text multilayered and rich in allusions. After the publication of Men without Women (1927), Hemingway returned to the United States, settling in Key West, Florida. Hemingway and Hadley divorced in 1927. On the same year Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer, a wealthy fashion editor. In Florida he wrote A Farewell to Arms, which was published in 1929. Its scene is the Italian front in World War I, where two lovers find a brief happiness. The novel gained enormous critical and commercial success. In 1930s Hemingway wrote such major works as Death in the Afternoon (1932), and The Green Hill of Africa (1935), a story of a hunting trip in East Africa. To Have and Have Not (1937) was made into a film by the director Howard Hawks who also liked to hunt, fish, and drink. In 1937 Hemingway observed the Spanish Civil war for distinctly. As many writers, he supported the cause of the Loyalist. In Madrid he met Martha Gellhorn, a writer and war correspondent, who became his third wife in 1940. The first years of his marriage were happy, but he soon realized that Gellhorn was not a housewife, but an ambitious journalist.
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