13/ Why is it said that Ernest Hemingway is a writer of the Iceberg principle? Prove this based on The Old Man and The Sea (1958)

Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) was born onto a well – to – do family in Illinois. Hemingway began his writing career as a reporter. Journalistic writing, particular for newspapers, focuses only on events being reported, omitting superfluous and extraneous matter. He was known as a writer of the Iceberg Principle. When he became a writer of short stories, he retained this minimalistic style, focusing on surface element without explicitly discussing the underlying theme. Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from surface story, rather, the crux of the story lies below the surface and from surface story. Hemingway summarized his theory as follow “If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the readers, if the writer is writing truly enough will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had state them. The dignity of movement of an Iceberg is due to only one-seven it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

It is a special novel with profound significance. It is not a simple story of an old man who caught a big fish and lost it to sharks, but another attempt of Hemingway to cope with the problems of old age and isolation, an attempt to make a fable concerned not with youthful romance and youthful strength, but with the resources of an old man whose youth is far behind him. Hemingway’s negative attitude toward life is conveyed in this sad story: Life is a game one is doomed to lose, as the old fisherman’s fishing in the sea. However, Hemingway believes that what matter is not what we get out of life, but the style with which we individuals face the fact of our own inevitable “defeat”. The selected reading shows us how the old man, acts “under pressure” how he gives meaning to his life, how he maintains his dignity and grace as a man. His struggle with the sharks, which is vividly described, produces nothing, but it earns him his pride: “you did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food… You killed for pride and because you are a fisherman”.