The purpose with this essay is to investigate how Ernest Hemingway uses his style of writing in his short stories “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and “Hills Like White Elephants”. The questions at issue are: What is characteristic of Hemingway's style when looking at the use of adjectives and sentence complexity? How is the Iceberg Technique used? What stylistic differences and similarities are there between the stories?

In my investigation I used a stylistic approach, in which adjectives are counted and sentence length is measured (creating mainly a quantitative analysis). The frequency of adjectives is calculated and compared against the norm in imaginative prose. Sentence length is compared against the norm for modern English. Previous research has provided a foundation for further analysis of the Iceberg Technique.

The analysis shows that the frequency of adjectives is very low compared with the norm and that many adjectives are used repeatedly. The sentences are very short, not even reaching half the length of the norm presented. Hemingway’s Iceberg Technique shows in the scarce use of dialogue tags and a plot that does not reveal much about the characters or the setting. The real plot is often hidden, leaving it to the reader to interpret and “feel” what the story is really about.

In conclusion: it may be said that both short stories are told in a minimalistic style, using only what is necessary to tell the story. They have a simple plot and simple characters, just like the Hemingway style we know.