Hemingway'S &Quot;Hills Like White Elephants&Quot; - Emerging In Eighths

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Emerging in Eighths Throughout the early-mid 1900’s Hemingway chose the ‘principle of the iceberg’ as his writing style for many of his short stories. This being an uncommon approach among writers during this era, he became the most prominently known artist to compose in this manner. Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” illustrates this literary style through a variety of strong, distinct techniques such as dialogue, repetition, and symbolism. Giving only one eighth of the information, this leaves the reader to assume the remaining seven eighths for themselves allowing him/her to become involved and, in a sense, create their own meaning of what is left beneath the surface. Hemingway’s intentional vagueness and use of third person omniscient is reflective of his unique writing style. Although the story is comprised mainly of dialogue, you realize the couple’s conversation is sparse for the amount of time that passes. In the first paragraph it states “the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes” (132). Furthermore, the characters are not identified past “The American” (132) and “Jig” (132); they are mainly referred to as the man and the girl. This technique demonstrates how their nationality and age differ, causing complications to their relationship. The third person omniscient point of view is particularly deceiving to the reader because Hemingway succeeds in keeping the focal topic to be determined by the reader. This is evident when he only approaches the subject of abortion, implying the matter as a “simple operation” (133), without actually mentioning it. Hemingway’s minimal use of adverbs throughout the dialogue accentuates the significance of the descriptors he does include. Another example of Hemingway’s exclusive literary style is his use of repetition, both in dialogue and narrative statements. This allows the reader to depict how
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