Writing style of Ernest Hemingway PDF

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Writing style of Ernest Hemingway There is a lot of work written about Hemingway's unique style. In fact, the two great stylists of twentieth-century American literature are William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, and the styles of the two writers are SO MUCH DIFFERENT that there can be no compar...

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Writing style of Ernest Hemingway There is a lot of work written about Hemingway's unique style. In fact, the two great stylists of twentieth-century American literature are William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, and the styles of the two writers are SO MUCH DIFFERENT that there can be no comparison. Hemingway's writing style is perhaps the more fun to read because of Hemingway's ultimate simplicity and because he so often used the same style and the same themes in much of his work. In the beginning of his writing career, Hemingway’s writing style was a great controversy and was oftentimes criticized. Basically, a typical Hemingway novel or short story is written in simple, direct, plain prose. Possibly, the style developed because of his early journalistic training. The reality, however, is this: Before Hemingway began publishing his short stories and sketches, American writers affected British MANNERISMS. Adjectives piled on top of one another; adverbs tripped over each other. Colons clogged the flow of even short paragraphs, and the excess of semicolons often caused readers to throw up their hands in frustration. And in the end came Hemingway. Critics usually describe Hemingway's style as simple, spare, and journalistic. These are all good words; they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence. Hemingway always manages to choose words concrete, specific, more commonly found, more ANGLO-SAXON, casual and conversational. He seldom uses adjectives and abstract nouns, and avoids complicated syntax. Hemingway’s strength lies in his short sentences and very specific details. His short sentences are powerfully loaded with the tension, which he sees in life. Where he does not use a simple and short sentence, he connects the various parts of the sentence in a straightforward and sequential way, often linked by “and”. In his task of creating real people, Hemingway uses dialogue as an effective device. Hemingway has often been described as a master of dialogue; in story after story, novel after novel, readers and critics have remarked, "This is the way that these characters would really talk." Yet, a close examination of his dialogue reveals that this is RARELY the way people REALLY speak. The effect is accomplished, rather, by calculated emphasis and repetition that makes us remember what has been said. In a nutshell, Ernest Hemingway writing style is simple, plain prose and straightforward language is used. He uses short sentences and very specific details. He RARELY uses adjectives and abstract nouns and avoids complicated syntax. Despite of writing short sentences, his short sentences carry weight of feelings. At some places he doesn’t use simple sentences but links the sentences simply by using “and”. Hemingway is known as the “master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence”....