What was Hemingway attempting to achieve with his style of writing?

Question

There is a famous story of Hemingway at a bullfight in Spain where the matador was gored and Hemingway attempts to resolve how and why the emotional effect was achieved.

Answer 1

Ernest Hemingway is a giant of modern literature. Among twentieth-century American fiction writers, his work is most often compared to that of his contemporaries William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Combined with his outstanding short stories, Hemingway’s four major novels—The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952)—comprise a contribution to modern fiction that is far more substantial than Fitzgerald’s and that approximates Faulkner’s.

Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature a few years before Hemingway received this recognition, but their respective approaches to fiction are so dissimilar that this belated receipt says little or nothing about Hemingway’s stature relative to that of Faulkner. When set alongside Faulkner’s Mississippi novels, Hemingway’s major works feature simpler structures and narrative voices/personae.

As or more important, Hemingway’s style, with its consistent use of short, concrete, direct prose and of scenes consisting exclusively of dialogue, gives his novels and short stories a distinctive accessibility that is immediately identifiable with the author. Owing to the direct character of both his style and his life-style, there is a tendency to cast Hemingway as a “representative” American writer whose work reflects the bold, forthright and rugged individualism of the American spirit in action.

His own background as a wounded veteran of World War I, as an engaged combatant in the fight against Fascism/Nazism, and as a “he-man” with a passion for outdoor adventures and other manly pursuits reinforce this association.

But this identification of Hemingway as a uniquely American genius is problematic. Although three of his major novels are told by and/or through American men, Hemingway’s protagonists are expatriates, and his fictional settings are in France, Italy, Spain, and later Cuba, rather than America itself.

While Hemingway’s early career benefited from his connections with Fitzgerald and (more so) with American novelist Sherwood Anderson, his aesthetic is actually closer to that shared by the transplanted American poets that he met in Paris during the 1920s; T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and, most crucially, Gertrude Stein. In this context, we must realize that Hemingway’s approach to the craft of fiction is direct but never blunt or just plain simple.

Hemingway’s text is the result of a painstaking selection process, each word performing an assigned function in the narrative. These choices of language, in turn, occur through the mind and experience of his novels’ central characters whether they serve explicitly as narrators of their experience or as focal characters from whose perspectives the story unfolds. The main working corollary of Hemingway’s “iceberg principle” is that the full meaning of the text is not limited to moving the plot forward: there is always a web of association and inference, a submerged reason behind the inclusion (or even the omission) of every detail.

We note, too, that although Hemingway’s novels usually follow a straightforward chronological progression as in the three days of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway does make use of summary accounts of the past, of memories related externally as stories, and of flashbacks. These devices lend further depth to his characters and create narrative structures that are not completely straightforward chronicles.

Hemingway is direct. But he is also quite subtle, and subtlety is not a trait that we ascribe to the American way. In the end, Hemingway is an international artist, a man who never relinquished his American identity but who entered new territories too broad and too deep to fit within the domain of any national culture.

Answer 2

Hemingway was trying to bring the world to the common man. He wrote in a very simplistic style that was his own creation, basically the way people communicate with each other. It worked for him, but believe it or not, it is absolutely one of the most difficult styles to duplicate. His theory was that everyone should be able to read his books. He had an amazing editor named Maxwell Perkins who believed that the best clients to edit were ones who didnt NEED editing. Hemingway's style was so bare bones that he often fought tooth and nail over single WORDS Perkins tried to cut from his manuscripts. The legend is that he once threatened to throw Perkins out of a building for removing a word from one of his books. It is very difficult to convey meaning in that bare bones style - but Hemingway was a master of it.

Answer 3

He began his writing career as a journalist and was paid by the word.

So rather than use one big word, he would use several small ones. This created for him a very easy to read style.

He also used 'devices' to keep the reader reading.

When he applied these techniques to fiction, the benefit was it permitted many less educated people to read his books. And his books were a big hit.

When he realized that what he was doing was working for him, he kept at it. And he sold a lot of books.

So it all comes down to money. He wrote simple prose so the masses could read him.

He once said, "Write the most honest sentence you can". And that sums up his style.

It was pure, clean and honest, but driven by the author's desire to sell his writing.

Answer 4

Diction: decision and use of words in writing--Hemingway chosen undemanding words, used them very obviously. His sentence structure also replaced into extremely undemanding and concise. Staccato can be a sturdy note to describe them. He used undemanding descriptions of gory activities (conflict, bloody scenes, and so on.) This replaced into in competition to the florid Victorian writers (Dickens, case in point) who used many rambling sentences and many adjectives and adverbs. Hemingway's form, therefore replaced into easily one of serious readability and brevity. "problematical" can be a sturdy one note description. It wasn't prettied-up. He did not use many commas, did not use a lot punctuation in any respect. a really undemanding, immediately-ahead form that replaced into very resourceful on the time.

Answer 5

What he was trying to achieve was filling pages with words that someone would pay him for. He needed the money for his booze. If there is any way I can be helpful to you in the future, just let me know.

Answer 6

I think he was attempting to make us feel like him: depressed. He was attempting to commit suicide through his stories. He found a gun more effective.

Answer 7

purity of language.