Ernest Hemingway’s signature style broke the mold. His short, declarative sentences, intentional repetition, and general absence of adjectives were a departure from the style of every previous novelist. Whereas authors before him conveyed meaning and mood through ornate descriptions of setting and detailed character sketches, Hemingway kept his writing terse and sparse. He ascribed to what he called the Iceberg Theory of writing. Not many people know this, but only about one-eighth of an iceberg is visible above water. Most of the iceberg, the remaining seven-eighths, is underwater and is invisible to an observer. Similarly, Hemingway believed that writers should only show the tip of the iceberg of characters and plot but indicate what was below the surface so powerfully that readers would be able to intuit it, and do so more meaningfully than if the author had described it outright. Author Tobias Wolff said, “It’s hard to imagine a writer who hasn’t been affected by him. He changed the furniture in the room.”

In this lesson, students will learn how Hemingway’s work at an influential newspaper, along with his immersion in the world of Modernist writers, laid the groundwork for his style. You have the option to assign a short story, “A Cat in the Rain,” and invite students to find examples of Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory at work in the story.

This lesson may be used for students who have not yet started studying Hemingway or for students at any point in their Hemingway study. For those who are already reading a Hemingway text, you may want to substitute the excerpts here with those from whatever text they’re reading. Consider pairing this lesson with the lesson on Hemingway’s Influences and Contemporaries.

Essential Questions:

• How did Ernest Hemingway develop his signature, ground-breaking style?
• What are the elements of Hemingway’s style, and how do they convey subtext?

About the Author:

Jessica Leader is a teacher and author. She has taught middle and high school English and social studies for 13 years in New York, Kentucky, and Washington, DC and has authored curriculum materials for several Ken Burns films. Her middle-grade novel, Nice and Mean, was published by Simon and Schuster. She believes in the power of great stories.