The Rose and Its Thorns
Little can be said by merely looking at a flower, as one has to closely watch its
evolution from both the productive and the destructive perspectives. Only then will he be able
to truly understand what lies beneath the simple image of that flower, the infinity of its true
colours. Hemingway is a master gardener with the incredible ability to create such flowers.
He named this capacity of oceanic simplicity the Iceberg Theory. Throughout his short stories
his words show us a much more complex image than the one surfaced, they glow and rise,
reaching where few can: the depth of our minds.
We are but mortal readers, living outside immortal works of art. Hemingway is the
one who gives his readers a task few writers can, a task that disconnects the characters from
their author and connects them with the readers. It is the readers job to reach the world
between the lines, it is his responsibility to respond to the blanks which the author willingly
left. The facts given hint at a deeper meaning, understanding these facts becoming the task
of the detached observer.1
It is said that Hemingway once won a bet with a six word story: For sale: Baby
shoes, never worn.2 There cannot exist a better example of his brilliant theory. Hemingways
flowers all tasted the drunken water of his iceberg. The presence of the theory is unmissable
1 Giger, Romeo (1977). The Creative Void: Hemingways Iceberg Theory. Bern: Francke Verlag,
Swiss Studies in English, t. 93. Page 38.
2 Timeless Hemingway (2009). The Ernest Hemingway Primer. Timeless Hemingway Publications
(http://www.timelesshemingway.com/). A quote which is believed to belong to Hemingway.
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in his works Hills Like White Elephants and Cat in the Rain, which can easily be transformed
into two endless novels. Ones mind will not hesitate to do so. Although, everyone might
have a different version traveling through his thoughts, as we all understand Hemingway in
ways that rarely meet.
There is a great deal of readers that cannot see past the argument in Hemingways Hills Like
White Elephants referring to it as an unintended discussion between two people waiting for a
train.3 By doing so they will never truly understand that the couple is at a culminating point,
and that the discussion is barely the top of the iceberg. Hemingways innovative writing style
requires an understanding that some of us might not be able to obtain from a sole reading of
the text. Hemingways Hills Like White Elephants does not mention the word abortion,
although in the story the male character seems to be attempting to convince his girlfriend to
have an abortion.4
Be it the dry hills from Spain or the rainy beaches from Italy, Hemingways characters always
mean to fill the voids in their slow termed discussions with vowels and consonants which
together shall give birth to never before listened combinations and entities that might escape
the darkness of silence. Be it an operation or a cat lost in the rain, the true intentions are never
spoken in their touchable forms but in metamorphosed silent words, misted in interpretation.
If one reads Hemingway, he does not have the necessity of a bright vision to capture
the masculinity in his works. This, being a true fact, is crystal clear in these mentioned short
3 Darzikola, Shahla Sorkhabi (2013). The Iceberg Principle and the Portrait of Common People in
Hemingways Works. English Language and Literature Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3; ISSN 1925-4768. Canadian Center
of Science and Education. Page 9.
4 Mellow, James R. (1992). Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-
395-37777-3. Page 348.
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stories. On the other hand, Hills Like White Elephants presents a side of Hemingways work
that worths being remarked, that of a strong but weak woman. After a close reading of the
short story, we are tempted to say that this girl has a mid of her own, but she strongly depends
on the man she travels with. One might have a slight itch in his hand and say that the woman
is the storys protagonist. Taking under consideration Cat in the Rain, we put foot on another
ground, that of a different type of man, one who cares and listens, the padrone. This typology
of man can be as well torn apart and searched for unsaid intentions, which as well the
mastermind left for interpretation.
As the stories develop, so does the iceberg grow. Each sentence can lead to another
ending, but no ending can be predicted. Hemingways theory of omission, as it also named, is
a camouflaged weapon, the characters having discussions which are covering wars. Even
though no ending is certain, a few of them are more probable than the others. It is in our
hands to select one.
There is more to a tree than leaves and wood, and that is life; there is more to a sky
than the Sun and clouds; and that is night. Hemingway tries to teach us to see beyond the
image, beyond definition and abstraction; he tries to teach us the power of interpretation and
the gift of understanding.
As Carlos Baker stated, Hemingway is the writer who knew how to get the most
from the least, how to prune language and avoid waste motion, how to multiply intensities,
and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth. 5
He knew that the humans head hides under a smile and shelters thousands of thoughts inside.
5 Baker, Carlos (1972). Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (4th ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-
01305-5. Page 117.
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One cannot live without dreaming. One cannot write without knowing the magnificent webs
which words can create. One cannot say he read if he has not yet read Hemingway. One
cannot read Hemingway if he cannot see the iceberg as a whole. Once this is done, he oughts
to smile, as he is a man of great capacity.
Bibliography
Baker, Carlos (1972). Hemingway: The Writer as Artist (4th ed.). Princeton
University Press. ISBN 0-691-01305-5. Page 117;
Darzikola, Shahla Sorkhabi (2013). The Iceberg Principle and the Portrait of
Common People in Hemingways Works. English Language and Literature Studies, Vol. 3,
No. 3; ISSN 1925-4768. Canadian Center of Science and Education. Page 9;
Giger, Romeo (1977). The Creative Void: Hemingways Iceberg Theory. Bern:
Francke Verlag, Swiss Studies in English, t. 93. Page 38;
Mellow, James R. (1992). Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences. New York:
Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-37777-3. Page 348;
Timeless Hemingway (2009). The Ernest Hemingway Primer. Timeless Hemingway
Publications (http://www.timelesshemingway.com/). A quote which is believed to belong to
Hemingway.
