Analysis Of 'The Old Man And The Sea' By Ernest Hemingway

Novelists strive to tell stories. They use specific words, phrases and literary devices to ensure that the story they are telling is an exceptional one. Occasionally authors paint the picture for us with their words and other times they force us to paint the picture ourselves. Ernest Hemingway had a style that can be described as minimalistic. He gave you only the surface of the story using specific word choice and dialogue and you had to put the pieces together to complete the idea. This unique use of skills has resulted in him being an author who is greatly studied. In his works, The Old Man and the Sea, The Garden of Eden and The Sun Also Rises we see him write in short, scant sentences that force us to draw our own conclusions about the rest of the story. This technique has earned him both criticism and fame. It is definitely not a style easily imitated. His dialogue techniques are similar as he uses short responses from characters and

This form of writing was not something that other writers were doing and it was questioned. Hemingway is quoted as saying that he got into the habit of counting words during his time as a reporter. He learned that less is more and that carried over to his novels. (Lamb) When reading his novels such as The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea, we see that Hemingway’s use of shorter sentences make the characters more real to the reader. The lack of flowery, flowing prose allows Hemingway to get straight to the point and walk the reader through some very tough subject matter more effectively. What seems simple and undone to others is poetic to some. “Short sentences slow down the pace of a narrative as the reader unconsciously pauses for an instant when a sentence ends, and also because the breaks between sentences force the reader to concentrate in order to grasp the transitions from one sentence to another.”