Iceberg model (literature)

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The iceberg model ( English : Iceberg Theory ) is a narrative theory approach that goes back to the writer Ernest Hemingway .

In a much-quoted passage in Hemingway used Death in the Afternoon (dt. Death in the Afternoon , the image of an iceberg to illustrate his idea of the art of omission and the narrative soon):

“If a prose writer understands enough of what he is writing about, he should leave out what is clear to him. If only the writer writes frankly enough, the reader will feel the omission as strongly as if the writer had put it on paper. An iceberg moves so gracefully that only one eighth of it is above water. "

- (E. Hemingway)

The actual, deeper or symbolic meaning of an artfully constructed narrative is therefore largely hidden and must be actively opened up by the reader through his own imagination or experience.

According to Hemingway, the information left out on the surface level of the text reinforces the foundation of the iceberg (and thus the message of the story). The narrated plot thus serves to create a subtext . On the linguistic level, Hemingway's iceberg model corresponds to a syntactically and lexically simple, laconic narrative style that nevertheless exhibits precision in the choice of words.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist . Charles Scribner's Sons , 4th ed. New York 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , p. 117.
  2. ↑ Cf. Death in the Afternoon , chapter 16, Charles Scribner's Sons , New York 1932, p. 192: “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 does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing ".
  3. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist . Charles Scribner's Sons , 4th ed. New York 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , p. 117. See also Detlev Gohrbandt: The Ice-Berg Theory . In: Detlev Gohrbandt: Ernest Hemingway - The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Other Stories. Model interpretations . Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-12-577390-3 , pp. 10-12. Likewise Lisa Tyler: Student Companion to Hemingway . Greenwood Press 2001, ISBN 0-313-31056-4 , p. 22. In this context, Tyler cites a statement attributed to Hemingway, which was only published after his death: “[…] my style is suggestive rather than direct […] The reader must often use his imagination or lose the most subtle part of my thought " .
  4. ↑ See Lisa Tyler: Student Companion to Hemingway . Greenwood Press 2001, ISBN 0-313-31056-4 , p. 22.
  5. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist . Charles Scribner's Sons , 4th ed. New York 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , pp. 117f. See also Detlev Gohrbandt: The Simple Style . In: Detlev Gohrbandt: Ernest Hemingway - The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Other Stories. Model interpretations . Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-12-577390-3 , p. 12f .: "This simplicity of style, both in vocabulary and syntax, is the linguistic equivalent of the ice-berg theory."