Profundity In Ernest Hemingway's Writings

Hemingway’s novels are still popular and loved by being unique and being easy to read for anyone. Some of the Hemingway’s novels are popular, in particular, “An old man and the sea” is known as the required readings in many high schools. His writing can be summed up in one word: conciseness, be that as it may, the inner meaning or theme of his writing is not just simple. They are more of profound and thought-provoking. In this paper, I’m going to show how Hemingway put profundity in his writings which are seemed to be much simpler than other’s writings with his novel “A clean well-lighted place” as an example. As a comparison target, I would make a research of writing style of Saul Bellow, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, with

Their conversation is direct and concise, expressing their character. Hemingway prefers writing dialogues in quotation mark, than using quoting at second hand like “He said that,” even there’s no description of any changes of their attitudes or environment between dialogues. “‘I want to go home to bed’ ‘What is an hour?’ ‘More to me than to him.’ ‘An hour is the same.’ ‘You talk like an old man yourself. He can buy a bottle and drink at home.’ ‘It’s not the same.’” (PAGE) In this way, readers could directly get the characters’ way of speaking or feeling of them. On the contrary, Bellow uses many descriptions for the speaker’s behavior or settings when there is a dialogue or a monologue in “Looking for Mr. Green”. “His shoulders drawn up, tears of cold in his eyes, breathing vapor, he went the length of the corridor and told himself that if he had been lucky enough to have the temperament for it he would bang on one of the doors and bawl out ‘Tulliver Green!’ until he got results.” (PAGE) Thus, Hemingway makes his writing strong and intense using

In “A clean well-lighted place”, there are just three characters, without name, exact age or detailed look and dressing. They are common waiters and customer around us so that the readers can easily be immersed in the story. On the other hand, Bellow emphasizes his characters’ distinct features. When he describes Staika, he uses following express, “She was flaming with anger and with pleasure at herself, broad and huge, a golden-headed woman who wore a cotton cap laced with pink ribbon.” (PAGE) Thus, Hemingway’s characters, differently with Bellow’s characters, are bland and common so that the effect of generalization is