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Ernest Hemingway Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea are often regarded as his best novels. These novels are known for Hemingway's interesting writing style and his bright manner of narration. A Farewell to Arms is a good example of so-called crisp precise prose and is characterized by lively assertive staccato (Astro 47). His style can be described as the style of eloquent repression. His prose is simple, laconic, lean, idiomatic and sparse. The main peculiarities in these two novels are: simplicity, the monosyllabic vocabulary, repetition, clarity and sharpness of phrases, the manner to leave the things out, and emotion.
In The Old Man and The Sea and A Farewell to Arms Hemingway presents a combination of his peculiar writing techniques. The first is realistic, like in a newspaper, with simple and short sentences and short paragraphs (Nelson 52). The second technique is constant use of repetitions and emphasizing on something, until the image will become imbedded in his readers mind. This cadenced, undulating and rhythmic prose can be brightly illustrated by the following passage from A Farewell to Arms (Chapter XX): We four drove out to San Siro in an open carriage. It was a lovely day and we drove out through the park and out along the tramway and out of town where the road was dusty. There were villas with iron fences and big overgrown gardens and ditches with water flowing and green vegetable gardens with dust on the leaves.
We could look across the plain and see farmhouses and the rich green farms with their irrigation ditches and the mountains to the north. There were many carriages going into the race track and the men at the gate let us in without cards because we were in uniform. These sentences illustrate Hemingway's realistic manner that gives us a strong image of realistic pictures, accompanied by repetitions and buzz words that add visual style and evoke psychological impression. For example, preposition with is used five times, and conjunction and is used ten times. Hemingway creates a style of visual dialogue. This feature is peculiar both to The Old Man and The Sea and A Farewell to Arms and can be described as documentary approach opposed to the poetic style (Lamb 453).
These novels are full of symbols and guess-work. Hemingway often compares his technique used in these novels with the principle of the iceberg. He says: There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story.
These words find bright reflection in his novels, as they characterize his detached, exacting manner tied with symbolism and dominating overtones of mystery. The Old Man and the Sea can be explored as an allegory of Hemingway's own literary experiences or the representation of life as a constant struggle. Repetitions and the ability to describe the meaning by few short simple words can be illustrated by the following examples: 'You " re tired, old man, ' he said. 'You " re tired inside. (112), He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed (50), It jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear (72), to mention a few. His ability to describe the things realistically in precise and simple manner, reverting to the snapshots of perception can be illustrated by the following passage from The Old Man and the Sea: Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin.
He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air In conclusion, we can summarize that Hemingway's writing style and techniques produce great impression on the reader. He uses a special literary style, a peculiar form of narrative realistic exhibition. Hemingway's style is rather the way of presenting a series of views and impressions to the reader than a way of telling stories. The use of abrupt and expressive words works in conjunction with impressive narration. These short words seem to promote and give the reader free samples from real life, the laconic phrases can be seen to refrain their original narratives into a readers world. The words and phrases are as simple as the prose is.
They are touching and disarming. The rhetoric and narrative style is exciting and well thought-out. The novels provide an interesting impression on the reader: although quite strange and unusual, but absolutely authentic and trustworthy positive. The characters are described so vividly due to use of these techniques, sincerity of performance and plenty of psychological details. The Old Man and The Sea and A Farewell to Arms are stuffed with correct intonations and emotions. They also have embarrassingly simple ending that is astonishing in its simplicity: the man wins the victory over him and will be rewarded by the only thing worthy to live for.
Bibliography Astro, Richard. (1974). Hemingway in Our Time. Corvallis: Oregon State UP Hemingway, E. (1995). The Old Man and The Sea. Scribner; Reissue edition Hemingway, E. (1995). A Farewell to Arms.
Scribner; Reprint edition Lamb, Robert P. (1996). Hemingway and the Creation of Twentieth-Century Dialogue. Twentieth century literature 42. 4 Nelson, Raymond S. (1984). Ernest Hemingway, Life, Work, and Criticism. Fredericton, N. B. : York Press
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