Ernest Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway

First Slide: About Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (Born July 21st 1899 in Illinois, USA) was an author and journalist. Most of his work was made between 1920s and 1950s. He made 10 NOVELS, 10 SHORT STORIES and 5 NON-FICTIONAL works. Nowadays he is considered a classic American writer.

When the First World War came, Ernest had to leave for the Italian front, as an ambulance driver. In 1918 he was wounded and he had to return to America. This experience gave him inspiration to create many short stories and novels. In 1921, he married Hadley Richardson, with who then he moved with to Paris. In 1927 he divorced his wife, and after two more wives, he married Mary Welsh. In 1952 he survived two plane crashes, which left him permanently ill. Some years after, he bought a house in Idaho, and committed suicide.

Second Slide: Hemingway’s writing style

Hemingway had a special way of writing, which created a lot of controversy. He had a simple and direct style of writing, which it could be thanked to his early journalist career. He avoids adjectives, but is able to transmit emotions saying much. He achieves this, by using the iceberg theory he made. According to Harry Levin, from the Harvard press, “Hemingway puts his emphasis on nouns because, among other parts of speech, they come closest to things.” Hemingway’s dialogue could be considered realistic, since this is how characters would actually speak. He achieves this by using emphasis and repetition precise moments. Hemingway talked about his point on view on how to write, and he said: “A writer's style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brilliant brevity, are hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists.”

Third Slide: Iceberg Theory

The Iceberg Theory, or Theory of omission, is part of Hemingway’s writing style. When Hemingway was a journalist, he had to focus in transmitting his news in a direct and precise way. After he writer, he retained this minimalistic style, where he only focuses in the basic, essentials, the tip of the iceberg. The bottom part of the iceberg is not shown, or at least not explicitly. This way, Hemingway says, that you can strengthen the story. Some critics say that this theory was used to distance Hemingway from his character. One example could be “Hills of white elephants”, since with a simple view, we may think it’s a simple conversation of two people in the train, but instead they are actually talking about abortion.

Fourth Slide: Hemingway Hero

In most of Hemingway’s stories there is a character which is called the Hemingway Hero, who is normally the manliest man, or in some cases the bravest women, in the story. These characters most of the time had some rough past, which lead to drinking, sleeping or some sort of problem. The Hemingway Hero

...