The Iceberg Principle: what it is and how is it used for writing

The things that we see, hear or read are, in fact, the most superficial layer of all the history that could be behind it. People's life shows like an iceberg, only seeing the tip of the large chunk of ice.

This reality is used by the famous writer Ernest Hemingway when writing his stories, rather short stories, with few details but with enough information for the readers to fill in the gaps in the story.

The beginning of the iceberg is a literary technique used by the American writer Ernest Hemingway that we are going to see next and that it can be related to practically any aspect of life, in which there is much more than meets the eye.

• Related article: "The 16 types of books that exist (according to different criteria)"

What is the Iceberg Principle?

If you read Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) you will get the feeling that his work seems as if it were floating on water. But despite that, his stories were not shipwrecked, quite the opposite. The stories and stories of this American journalist have gone down in the history of universal literature and are few people who do not know the name of this author, one of the leading novelists and storytellers of the century XX.

The symbolism of Hemingway's stories lies underwater, a metaphor that fits very well with the name of the technique he coined: the iceberg principle. What he wants to tell about his stories is not seen with a mere quick and superficial reading. of what the famous writer captured with printed words, but through assumptions. The core of his stories was suggested, in the form of brushstrokes that cannot be captured by reading the letter.

The principle of it from the Iceberg is simple to understand. According to Hemingway, every story should reflect only a small part of the story, leaving the rest to the reading and interpretation of the readers. Just as when we see an iceberg float, what we are seeing is only its surface, with about 90% of the large piece of ice submerged, not visible to the naked eye.

History should not show the true background gratuitouslyIt must be like that iceberg, be suggested and make the reader strive to see it. With this we are not talking about morals or double meanings, although they can also be included in that submerged part of the iceberg. The concept proposed by Hemingway goes much further. For example, if we want to talk about love through a story, what we can do is focus the story on a couple who fight while on vacation.

Through this discussion we will enter a greater reality, love itself, and the consequences associated with it. aspects of coexistence as a couple, such as solitary confinement or the time in the life of a partner. All of this could be done without explicitly talking about love in the text.

• You may be interested in: "17 curiosities about human perception"

Application of the technique

Applying this technique, Hemingway first wrote or thought of a complete story and, later, when he had everything settled, With every detail and aspect of the story thought out, he removed up to 80% of its content, leaving only and exclusively what is essential. With this method he forced the readers to make the effort to fill in the gaps left by the writer with their own interpretation.

On many occasions, Hemingway made his stories by making the plot revolve around a conflict or an issue that was not known. he goes so far as to mention explicitly throughout the text, making it the reader who must discover what is happening. Thanks to this technique, meticulously selecting the information worthy of being put in the text and also omitting the convenient one, He made the reader have to reread the story, even though with the first reading he felt that there was something that had touched him. fiber.

Hemingway did not delete information randomly. He followed his own criteria, one so extremely good that it was the one that made it go down in the history of world literature. The American journalist eliminated those parts that he considered superfluous and that did not point or direct what he wanted the reader to understand. Although in a subtle way, he managed that what he put in the story, at the end of the whole, lead the reader to where Hemingway wanted to direct him.

It is said that Ernest Hemingway began to mature this theory during the year 1923, after finishing his short story "Out of Season." The author himself commented that he omitted the true ending of this story, which was that the old man who stars in the story ended up hanging himself. Hemingway omitted this part, which is so crucial in appearance, but which helped him to see that, according to his by then new theory, any part can be omitted and that it will be that omitted part that will reinforce the narration.

One of Hemingway's biographers, Carlos Baker, once commented that the writer learned how to make the most of the lesser, of shorten language and avoid unnecessary movements to multiply the intensity and the way of saying nothing but the truth in a way that allows to tell more of it.

• Related article: "Psychology gives you 6 tips to write better"

Practical example of this method of writing

It is difficult to fully understand how Hemingway's method works if you have never read one of his stories. For this reason we are going to talk (and also gut) one of his stories: "Hills like white elephants." In this story, he presents us with an apparently trivial conversation between an American couple waiting for the arrival of a train to Madrid at a station near the Ebro river. The couple is talking as they take in the scenery and have some beer and anise. The story ends with the announcement of the arrival of the train.

The story is basically a conversation in which we are clearly told that the couple is heading towards a place in the that the girl will have to undergo an operation and the two will discuss whether or not to continue with the plan. And little else. The man doesn't even have a name and the girl we only know is that her name is Jig. The appearance of her is not described nor is it hardly spoken of how they behave or what gestures they have.

The story is pure dialogue and has almost no time markers. It is a story with a sober appearance and with a very natural, plain and simple language.

But nevertheless, as the reader makes a more careful reading, he may come to intuit that the two characters are talking about a possible abortion, an intervention that will have consequences for the continuity of the couple. That would be the first level of depth of the text, and it is something that can be interpreted this way since the text contains many elements that reinforce that idea.

For example, the characters find themselves in a relationship crisis, something that is reinforced by the space in which they find themselves, a halt observing a Mediterranean landscape. On one side of the tracks, the landscape is green and exudes fertility, while the other is arid and dry, symbols of pregnancy and abortion, respectively. The girl comments that the very dry hills actually look like white elephants, something that could be interpreted as a metaphor for fertility. Even Hemingway shows duality when he exposes that the two have a different view of the taste of anise.

But we have not yet reached the deepest layer of the iceberg. Beneath that layer, we find another one that is more submerged and that talks about the situation of the couple and their breakup. The story confirms the differences between the two characters and that reconciliation is impossible. The possibility arises that neither of the two options, abortion or not, is the solution to their problems. The couple is already broken, and whatever is done, there will be no possible solution. The couple ends up separated when the train arrives, although, as readers, we never get to see how the transport appears.

Recapitulating about the story and relating it to the beginning of the iceberg, we can make a mental and graphic image of the data that we are given in the story. The most superficial layer is what is read textually in the text, each of the words in Hemingway's handwriting. The next two layers are the ones that actually give us a more extensive view of the story, getting closer to the core of it. Read superficially, this is nothing more than a banal conversation between a traveling couple, but that is not what is actually happening.