Kamalism Ernest Hemingway Analysis

Less is More

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he dose not know them only makes hollow places in his writing (Hemingway 192).

Ernest Hemingway, a dominant figure in American minimalism, uses the concrete image of iceberg and figuratively indicates the art of omission—that is often employed as a technique to add depth into a story may seem superficial and incomplete on the surface. Although a number of prominent writers,

Following the popular trends previously established in art and music, writers became increasingly interested in minimalism as a literary technique in the late1970s and early 1980s due to Baroque no longer met their needs. Hence, the number of writers grew exponentially during this time. To minimalist writers, the narration with implication by omission can strengthen a story, and work best for the reader as well. Due to the stories are more about “common people” as oppose to powerful and aristocratic and daily dialogue, it is easy for reader to understand and use their own experience to develop the meaningful idea by themselves. In the course of engaging with the story, readers may resonate with writer for the social reality that they are both concerned. In addition, for its distinguish features, literary minimalism appears in popular magazines, such as The New Yorker. Media plays an important role in promoting the minimalist

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why opponents of minimalism often address the “omission” as the first issue to criticize, and why minimalism was questioned by many critics for being incomplete and dismissed as TV fiction. However, “Critics Cynthia Hallett, Kim Herzinger and Arthur Saltzman, praise minimalist writers for their ability to do away with all unnecessary information in order to focus exclusively on necessary events and actions”, which we can see that it is actually quite a challenge to write a work of minimalism. An unskilled writer can certainly damage a story by omitting seemingly unimportant information but necessary enough. The “new” type of narration does enrich the literary writing style, and becomes a driving force promoting literature