Hemingway, the Nobel Prize, and the Art of Understatement
Baxter Byrd
Ernest Hemingway’s revolutionary writing style
acted as a pivotal transition from the Victorian era into the 20th
century, modern era of writing, and in 1950 was called, “the most important
author living today, the outstanding writer since the death of Shakespeare”
(O’Hara). His terse, straightforward prose stood in stark contrast to the
loquacious and bejeweled writing of the previous era, and on October 28, 1954, he
was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his mastery of the art of
narrative, most recently demonstrated in The
Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary
style” (Nobel), becoming only the fifth American to receive the Prize since its
inception in 1901 (“Hemingway is the winner…”). It solidified his body of work
in the literary canon, and served as a formal recognition of the importance of
his style, which was a departure from the florid work of the Victorian writers
who preceded him. That Hemingway was awarded the Nobel
Prize in literature is evidence of his abilities as a writer. However, as adept
as he was at crafting novels and short stories, Hemingway implied this was
where his talent stopped, and as he stated in his Nobel Prize acceptance
speech, he had '"no facility for speech making...nor any domination of
rhetoric." Despite this claim, in the very same speech act Hemingway shows
exemplary rhetorical skill via a veiled argument that reinforces his ethos as
being worthy of the Prize. By understating his accomplishments and abilities as
a writer, soliciting emotional connection by the use of pathos, and wrapping
these elements together in his unique style, Hemingway creates a rhetorically
complex speech that justifies the academy’s choice in awarding him the highest
prize in writing.
Ernest
Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Ill on July 21, 1899 (Baker 3). After
graduating high school, Hemingway worked as a cub reporter for the Kansas City
Star, where he began to develop his spare style, largely under the influence of
the Star’s own style sheet, which stressed that the reporter should, “Use short
sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not
negative.” (Baker 30, Kansas City Star). Later, after a short stint as an
ambulance driver in World War I where he was nearly killed (Baker 42, 44), he
became a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, and moved to Paris where
he continued to file stories from across Europe via telegram back to Toronto
(Baker 82). The combination of reporting and filing stories via telegram undoubtedly
had an influence on his writing, which
focused on simple, declarative sentences without elaborate details or
unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. Once Hemingway found success via this style,
he used it throughout his career, and it became one of the reasons he was
awarded the Nobel Prize.
To meet the
exigence of being awarded the prize, in November of 1954 Hemingway drafted his epideictic
acceptance speech. This relatively
short, compactly written speech is deceptively complex; much like the books and
stories he wrote that earned him the right to pen it. His inclusion of
rhetorical devices, mastery of perspective, and the deliberate way in which
Hemingway crafted the speech’s message shows a proficiency that he argues in
the very same speech he does not have.
Hemingway was unable to personally attend the
ceremony in Sweden due to injuries he sustained in two successive plane crashes
while on safari in Uganda, and instead the speech was delivered on his behalf
by US Ambassador to Sweden John Cabot
(Baker 525-528). Hemingway later was recorded reading the speech, which
was delivered to the Academy for posterity (Baker 528). Given the gravity of
the occasion, much would have been expected of Hemingway, after all, the Nobel
Prize is considered to be the “the crowning achievement of an entire career”
(Scribner, A&E), and to properly address the audience, Hemingway needed to
encapsulate all that he was as a writer in order to justify to the Academy that
his was a character worthy of their selection.
Litotes as a Means to Build Character
The rhetorical
concept of litotes is a means to
build ethos, or character by intentionally downplaying one’s accomplishments to
show modesty in order to gain the favor of the audience (Burton, Anonymous). Although
Hemingway won the Prize “for his mastery of the art of narrative,” he counter
intuitively opens the speech in a direct act of litotes when he states “Having
no facility for speech-making and no command of oratory, nor any domination of
rhetoric, I wish to thank the administrators of the generosity of Alfred Nobel
for this Prize.” This initial salvo of
modesty – there are three instances of lack of ability in this first sentence
alone – followed by his thanking the academy for being awarded the Prize serves
to establish humility and goodwill by lowering his own status while
simultaneously raising the status of the audience. He deliberately informs the
audience that no matter his having won the Prize, he is a man of limited
capabilities, which serves to ingratiate the audience to him.
He continues in this modest tone,
using litotes to build character when he states, “No writer who knows the great
writers who did not receive the prize can accept it other than with humility.”
Here, Hemingway downplays his accomplishment by inferring that since other, perhaps
greater writers did not win the Prize, his winning it can only be done in their
shadow. While he does not elaborate publicly in the speech which writers he
felt were worthy of the Prize, privately, Hemingway said he would have
been “happier – today, if the Prize had gone to that beautiful writer Isak
Dinesen (Karen Blixen neé Dineson), to Bernard Berenson…to Carl Sandburg.”
(Baker 527).
As
Hemingway concludes his speech, he repeats his litotic opening idea, “I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer
should write what he has to say and not speak it. Again I thank you.” Just as in the first sentence, he understates
his abilities in the realm of rhetoric, and then immediately offers gratitude
for being awarded the Prize, once again increasing ethos. It should be noted
however, that his aversion to speaking was something that he dealt with often.
A private letter regarding his appearance on Voice of America radio makes it
quite clear about Hemingway’s thoughts on speaking about his books or work, “It
make’s me feel actively sick to talk about my stuff…This is not a gag…there are
writers who enjoy talking about themselves or their work…but I am not one of
them.” In Hemingway’s case, his litotic claim happened to be one out of truth, not
disingenuousness, which, in the end, bolsters his ethos even more by remaining
true to his ideologies.
Another litotic element found in the
speech - although less obvious - is Hemingway’s heavy use of the third person
narrative technique, and avoiding as much as possible the first person. Although we can be reasonably sure where
Hemingway invokes the third person that he is referring to himself, the third
person voice serves to distance Hemingway from the accomplishment of winning
the prize – as if it was an entity other than Hemingway himself who won the
prize (i.e. the unknown third person) - and in doing so, increases humility and
thus ethos. There are six instances of the first person in the speech, but
twenty-one instances of the third person.
The deliberate nature of this shift in point of view is apparent in an
early draft of the speech, and comparing it to the final draft finds three
instances where the first person “I” was changed to “writer,” “his,” and “a
man,” and the sentence, “But I will try to write them” was rejected altogether.
That Hemingway was concerned with how he would be regarded can be seen in a
hand-written note on the same early draft of the speech where Hemingway writes,
“It was very hard to get what I wanted to say without being ungrateful or rude”
(Hemingway Draft). Even more remarkable, in the instances where Hemingway did
invoke the first person viewpoint, it was only when he make explicit litotic statements
about his lack of abilities. Any instance where Hemingway mentions success or
his abilities is addressed via the third person perspective, thus downplaying
the accomplishment and projecting an air of modesty, as if he is unwilling to
take full credit for his work. This distancing of himself from his abilities helps
to build Hemingway as a humble and gracious character, and helps to show the reverence
he has for the academy and being chosen as a Nobel laureate.
It is worth noting that the use of
litotes is also present in Hemingway’s literature. In The Old Man and the Sea, when the boy Manolo, says to the old man,
“And the best fisherman is you?” the old man replies litotically, “No. I know
others better” (Old Man 25). Here, like Hemingway understating his abilities
and accomplishments, the old man replies in a modest way, inferring he is not
the best, rather there are others who are.
For a writer supposedly not having
any domination of rhetoric, Hemingway clearly understands how to employ the
device of litotes to create a humble character in light of the situation, both
in the speech, and earlier in The Old Man
and the Sea. Instead of simply taking credit for the work that earned him
the Prize, Hemingway instead felt it was more important to portray himself as a
character that was worthy of it. His decision to utilize litotes – to downplay
his accomplishments - as a main element in his speech was not without risk
however. At the time, Hemingway’s public
image was drawn largely by his body of literary work. This work, which focused
on subjects such as bullfighting, war experiences, and big game hunting and
fishing, featured characters (often a thinly veiled Hemingway) that were
concerned with personal achievement, often in stiff competition against others.
These works gave Hemingway an aura of indestructibility and achievement, but
also brashness. The private Hemingway, the writer who struggled with insecurity
and fear of failing at the work he considered the most important he could do,
was not widely known outside of close friends, literary contacts, and now, contemporary
scholars who have unfettered access to his posthumously published letters. To
focus his acceptance speech on this less-known side of his personality could
have seemed out of character and potentially insincere by some who may have expected
his speech to be in a similar vein as the work they were already familiar with.
History, however, does not seem to indicate any negative response to
Hemingway’s speech in regards to this, which shows the alacrity with which Hemingway
balanced these two seemingly contradictory personas. The closest thing to a critical
recognition of Hemingway’s seemingly contradictory private/public person is
found in James Mellon’s, “Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences” in which he
infers that Hemingway’s reaction to receiving the Prize was with “sudden
generosity and false modesty” as if modesty regarding his work were an
aberration. Again, as in other area of
Hemingway’s beliefs, a private conversation, this one with his son Gregory –
after Gregory did exceedingly well at a live pigeon shoot in Cuba – Gregory
reports Hemingway telling him, “Gig, when you are truly great at something, and
you know it, you would like to brag about it sometimes. But if you do, you’ll
feel like shit afterwards” (Hendrickson 521). This isn’t false modesty, it is a
careful understanding of how to navigate the razor thin line of the private and
public lives of an artist.
Pathos as a Means to Persuade
In addition to
litotes as a vehicle to build ethos, the speech is also rife with episodes of
pathos – or emotional appeals - which also serve to persuade the audience that Hemingway
was worthy of the Prize. In the second paragraph of the speech, Hemingway
speaks of “the great writers who did not receive the Prize,” and that “There is
no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to
his knowledge and his conscience.” Here, Hemingway utilizes the rhetorical
epitrope, through which a rhetor relies on the abilities of an audience to
supply meaning – or “fill in the gaps” – (Burton, Anonymous), and does not explicitly
elaborate which writers he is referring to. In this flattering move, Hemingway
draws on his agency of the knowledge of his audience, that they are a)
consumers of fine literature and b) that they can distinguish one writer’s worthiness
over another to be considered a Nobel laureate. Through this epitropic act of
flattery, Hemingway puts it to the audience to determine for themselves who
should have been a recipient of the Prize. This draws the audience yet closer to
Hemingway, swaying them through the emotional connection to him.
Going
slightly the other direction but still to the same effect, Hemingway follows
this with an adynative assertion that, “It would be impossible for me to ask
the Ambassador of my country to read a speech in which a writer said all of the
things which are in his heart.” The rhetorical adynaton is simply “the
expression of the impossibility of expression” (Burton, Anonymous). In this
case, we can imagine Hemingway so full of joy or pleasure that his work has
been recognized within the great literary canon that he is incapable is
expressing himself. It is as if he is drawing on Shakespeare in Othello, who states, “I cannot speak
enough of this content (happiness); It stops me cold; it is too much of joy”
(Shakespeare 1123). By invoking the adynaton, Hemingway shows his human-ness,
his appreciation, and happiness in having been chosen, and further endears
himself to the audience, building character in the process.
The next paragraph deepens the
pathetic connection between the audience and Hemingway when he states, “Writing
at its best is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness
but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds
his loneliness and his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone...” (Hemingway Speech). Hemingway’s use of mesodiplosis
- or the repetition of the same word in successive sentences (Burton, Anonymous)
- by repeating a form of the word ‘alone,’ amplifies the audience’s sympathy for
the writer, which is heightened even more as Hemingway implies in the last
sentence that, “…if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the
lack of it, each day.
Hemingway’s familiarity with
mesodiplosis can also be seen in The Old
Man and the Sea when the old man contemplates whether the marlin will dive
after being hooked, “What will I do if he decides to go down, I don’t know.
What I’ll do if he sounds and dies I don’t know. But I’ll do something. There
are plenty of things I can do” (Old Man 49). Like his repetition of “alone” in
the speech amplifies the idea of loneliness, here, repeating “do” four times in
four successive sentences gives us insight into the workings of the old man’s
mind as he navigates over the sea of possibilities that he must choose from in
order to land the biggest fish of his life.
Returning to the adynaton once again,
Hemingway says, “For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where
he tries again for something that is beyond attainment.” Here, it is not his
emotions that are impossible to express, rather he intimates that his job as a
writer is to try to do something that is impossible to do. This idea that the
writer always will face an uphill battle creates a sympathetic character to be admired
as he struggles to achieve the impossible. Hemingway referred to this uphill battle in a
private letter to Russian literary critic Ivan Kashkin when he said, “But
writing is something that you can never do as well as it can be done. It is a
perpetual challenge and it is more difficult than anything else that I have
ever done – so I do it” (Hemingway/Kashkin). As if that is not enough, Hemingway – via
exergasia – or repeating the same idea to amplify the concept (Burton,
Anonymous) - conjures once again the impossible
as he states that the “writer is driven far out past where he can go…where no
one can help him” (Hemingway Speech). Compare this return to an earlier idea to
The Old Man and the Sea when of
Santiago, Hemingway says, “He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on
the beach,” and restating this in the last line of the book, “The old man was
dreaming about the lions” (Old Man 27,140). And another example from For Whom the Bell Tolls, whose opening
line is, “He lay on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on
his folded arms…,” and whose closing line is, “He could feel his heart beating
against the pine needle floor of the forest” (Bell Tolls 1, 471). Accident?
Dumb luck? Not likely. Hemingway knew exactly what he was doing with each of these
rhetorical devices. By using these devices to flatter the audience or express joy,
to solicit sympathy by describing the seemingly insurmountable task of the
writer, or to remind the audience that writing, at its core, is a lonely
profession, Hemingway builds a humble as well as gracious character, one deserving
of the praise he has received.
By invoking emotional appeals based
on his use of complex elements of pathos, Hemingway further persuades the
audience that he was the right choice for the Prize. His dexterity in applying
subtle pathetic elements shows a deep understanding of how to elicit emotive
connections via rhetorical devices - this in contrast to his claim. Evidence of
his use of these same devices in his literary work also confirms Hemingway’s
familiarity, and indeed mastery of the use of these rhetorical devices to
develop a humble, modest, and grateful character whose appreciation of the
recognition he has garnered is, for him, nearly inexpressible.
Conclusion
Quite simply, Ernest Hemingway is one of the world’s great
writers. His unique style and approach to writing (and to life itself) resulted
in timeless works of literary art that continue to resonate today. That he was
chosen for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1954 can only be seen as validation
of his abilities. Whether Hemingway truly felt he lacked the ability to craft
an effective speech, he was able to synthesize all that was unique about him as
a writer into a compact and powerful artifact; a distillation of his body of
work into a 334-word speech that justified his being awarded the highest prize
in literature. While it is possible Hemingway had no formal education in the
concepts of rhetoric, he most assuredly knew the practical use of them as
demonstrated by their application not only in the speech, but also throughout his
literary works. Understating his achievements and abilities using litotes to
built ethos, deploying elements of pathos to form an emotional connection with
the audience, and then delivering those elements via his unique style to show
characterological coherence is evidence that, contrary to his claim, Hemingway
was in full control of rhetorical devices and knew how and when to use them.
That is not
to say Hemingway’s work was without its critics. After the publication of Across the River and Into the Trees, many
believed he had become a lesser writer, calling the book “embarrassing to read”
(Hendrickson 435), and that he had lost his touch. And of Hemingway’s use of
the iceberg principle: one criticism may be that while it may deepen the
reader’s connection to the story by not telling us every detail, it also keeps
us from seeing the world exactly as Hemingway saw it and experienced it. Which,
in the end, may be more evidence of Hemingway’s mastery of his private and
public personas; to tell too much may have been to tell too much.
Still, for
a writer who once said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one becomes
a master,” it could be well argued that Hemingway got as close as anyone might,
and receiving the Nobel Prize was not only confirmation of this, but also
serves to ensure that – as Hemingway would have wanted – his work endures.
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