Iceberg Jake

The general consensus (in 5^th hour, at least) was that Jake is a trustworthy narrator. Factualness and a lack of personal speculation (as seen in Jake’s style) makes any narrator seem trustworthy, if not almost completely objective. Additionally, Jake does not obviously express any sort of emotion to us, making his narrative seem even more transparent. It becomes so easy to dismiss Jake as a background character and read through Jake as if his “literary lens” was relatively clear, as if Hemingway did not deliberately write Jake this way to provide some sort of characterization. 

I think Hemingway is an absolute genius when it comes to this sort of “iceberg-writing”. His writing style (for Jake) is very analytical and generally exudes a lack of emotion and expression, outside of dialogue. Most of the time, Jake seems to be merely observing the scene and reporting to the reader with supposedly objective description, and this is what makes it so easy for us to forget Jake’s characterization (especially in scenes where he isn’t speaking much). However, it makes the utmost sense that Jake’s writing style is somewhat cold and analytical. Jake is, in fact, a journalist. He is the Paris correspondent for a newspaper, and likely reads newspapers frequently (as hinted at on page 44). His writing (or thinking) style, then, seems to mirror the factual and analytical style used by other current events reporters. We take him for his word because he writes like someone who needs to make people take him for his word. In the same way that the author of a news article becomes background, Jake’s color fades (somewhat) and becomes background to the scene. We almost forget that all the observations are his – and it is subtle details such as these which make the characters so brilliant.

            The lack of emotion in Jake’s style says a lot about him as well. If Jake is indeed “stoic” (as discussed in 5^th hour), it makes sense that he is unwilling to admit explicitly expressed emotion even into his personal thoughts; it makes sense that everything is still tucked between the lines. He doesn’t cry or shout, as Mike or Cohn might, but rather remains seemingly indifferent, invulnerable, deceivingly calm. His only reactions seem to be drinking or “feeling bad”, almost without sufficient cause or commentary – he simply drinks, he simply feels bad. Every action becomes simple – it almost feels like he doesn’t process his emotion at all, especially negative emotion. He himself ignores it (likely subconsciously), which is why readers find it easy to ignore it as well.

            What Jake chooses to include and not include also play a paramount role in his characterization. The most obvious example of this is the scene where he and Brett go to the club and meet the black drummer. Jake’s “objective” narration characterizes the drummer as “all teeth and lips”, and eventually even blurs out his speech to mere ellipses. While these observations may seem transparent on first read, they reveal Jake’s prejudices and ideals – once again, the subtlest bits of characterization are hidden deep between the lines.