Ernst Hemingway is known for using the so-called iceberg technique. It’s a writing style where you only get to know a little bit and then you have to imagine the rest yourself. Like an iceberg, you only see about a ninth above the surface. In the short story, Indian Camp, he uses this technique and I’ve found an A example is a line in the start (page 21 lines 7-8): “Nick heard the oarlocks of the other boat quite a way ahead of them in the mist.”
If you just read it, you might not see it, but it is actually telling us something about Nick. If it had been a sunny afternoon and they were going to have a picnic Hemingway would not have told us that Nick was attentive on the oarlocks, because Nick would not have been attentive on them. But in the situation Nick is very excited and concentrated, and that is why he is attentive on the oarlocks.
Another example on page 24 lines 19-23: “He was feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in a dressing room after a game. “That’s one for the medical journal, George,” he said. “Doing a Caesarean with a jackknife and sewing it up with nine-food, tapered gut leaders.”
Det er gratis at oprette en konto