About Josh Silverstein Expertise I will answer questions relating to Ernest Hemingway's life or literature. I can also help with quotation source requests. No homework questions please.
Experience Mr. Silverstein holds a B.A. in English Literature and has been studying the life and works of Ernest Hemingway for the past ten years. His major work on Hemingway is titled, "The Importance of Being Ernest: Hemingway's Truth in Fiction and his Fiction in Truth." He is also author of "Hemingway: Alive and Well Online," an article exploring Hemingway's presence and position in the online community. He is the founder of "Timeless Hemingway," an award winning web site devoted to Ernest Hemingway.
Question Some explanation about Hemingway's Iceberg Principle applied in The Old Man and the Sea
Answer Hello,
Hemingway's Iceberg Theory
"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."
- *Death in the Afternoon,* Scribner's, 1932, Chap. 16, 192.
Take the above and apply it to some symbolic elements of OMATS.
-- You may want to focus on the seemingly strong religious implications.
-- What do the lions represent at the close of the story?
-- How does the old man truly feel about the fish?
Hemingway uses the iceberg theory in all of the points above. "If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows..."
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