Ernest Hemingway s Life As A Writer - 1074 Words

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born July 21, 1899 in Chicago, IL to Clarence and Grace Hill-Hemingway. Ernest’s parents were a physician and a musician, respectively, and were both well educated individuals who encouraged their children to follow in their footsteps educationally. Ernest Hemingway began his career as an author and journalist at the age of seventeen. Ernest took a high school course in Journalism taught by Fannie Biggs, which was taught, as though the classroom were a newspaper office (Griffin). Much like many of the early American authors such as Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Sinclair Lewis (Myers) Hemingway was a journalist before he became a novelist. It was his career in journalism that sparked his successful career as†¦show more content†¦Hemingway so tastefully describe the art of journalistic writing as the â€Å"Iceberg Theory† (Oliver) the â€Å"Iceberg Theory† is thought to have gotten its name from Hemingway saying, â€Å"If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.† (Hemingway, Brainy Quote). It is this quote that defines Hemingway’s career as a short-story author and novelist. When writing short stories Hemingway would often leave key details up to the reader by saying as little as possible. This can be seen in the dialogue of his short stories such as, â€Å"Hills Like White Elephants†. â€Å"’They look like white elephants,† she said. â€Å"I’ve never seen one,† the man drank his beer. â€Å"No, you wouldn’t have.† â€Å"I might have,† the man said. â€Å"Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything.’† (Hemingway, Lit). This cut and dry excerpt of dialogue shows just how little â€Å"fluff† Hemingway wrote into his short stories. It is â€Å"Hills Like White Elephants† that adequately depicts Hemingway’s â€Å"Iceberg Theory†. It is not what is stated explicitly, but what is not said that is important. Nearly every aspect of â€Å"Hills Like White Elephants† can be interpreted to mean something else. From the train tracks to the hills, the felt pads have even been considered as an allusion to the pads used to soak up