Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory, Explained Plainly
The iceberg theory is writing by informed omission: most of the writer’s knowledge stays below the surface, while selected actions and details let the reader feel it.
Men Without Women
The second story collection — 'The Killers,' 'Hills Like White Elephants' — the iceberg method at its coldest and most perfect.
- 1927
About Ernest Hemingway
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freePublished in 1927, the year after The Sun Also Rises, this is the collection that fixed the Hemingway short story as a form: fourteen pieces about boxers, bullfighters, hit men, soldiers, and couples talking carefully past the one subject that matters. 'The Killers' and 'Hills Like White Elephants' alone would secure it — two of the most anthologized, imitated, and taught stories in the language. The title is the thesis: men stripped of women, and of everything else that softens. (A collection — nothing here to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
The collection gathers the stories written in the wake of the first novel's success — Paris, Madrid, and the ski towns, 1926 into 1927, the year his first marriage was breaking on the second. The famous pieces run on omission at full pressure: 'Hills Like White Elephants' never names the operation a couple argues about at a Spanish railway junction; 'The Killers' never explains why the Swede won't run from the men who've come to Summit to kill him. What is left out does the work, and a century of creative-writing classrooms has been unpacking the method since.
Around the two summits stand the professionals: 'Fifty Grand' and its aging welterweight betting on his own crooked fight; 'The Undefeated' and its over-the-hill matador granted one terrible integrity; 'In Another Country' opening on the most imitated first sentence in American prose ('In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more'); 'Now I Lay Me' with Nick Adams awake in the night, holding off his soul's departure. Critics at the time — Virginia Woolf among them, reviewing it skeptically — worried the manner was hardening into mannerism. The stories outlived the worry.
What's inside
Fourteen stories. The teaching canon: 'The Killers,' 'Hills Like White Elephants,' 'In Another Country,' 'Now I Lay Me.' The professionals under pressure: 'The Undefeated,' 'Fifty Grand,' 'My Old Man''s successors in the rings and rails. The margins of the war and the marriage: 'A Simple Enquiry,' 'A Canary for One' — the last written as his first marriage ended, with a sting in its final line. Plus the playlet 'Today Is Friday' — three Roman soldiers in a bar after a crucifixion — and 'Che Ti Dice La Patria,' Mussolini's Italy seen coldly from a passing car.
Read 'Hills' and 'The Killers' first if they're somehow still ahead of you; then 'In Another Country,' which Fitzgerald called one of the finest stories he'd ever read.
Why we recommend it
Two perfect stories
'The Killers' and 'Hills Like White Elephants' are the compressed method at its absolute peak — nothing in the language teaches more per page.
The professionals
Boxers and matadors past their primes, doing the job right anyway — the code, before the novels made it famous.
The war, off-page
The wound runs under every story without parading — the collection is the iceberg it preaches.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Manuel Garcia
An aging Spanish bullfighter, just out of hospital, who takes the cheapest job in Madrid because it is the only one on offer. From 'The Undefeated'.
Jack Brennan
An Irish-American welterweight champion at the end of his career, who bets fifty thousand dollars against himself. From 'Fifty Grand'.
Nick Adams
A young man from northern Michigan who turns up in three of the fourteen stories, and in Hemingway's other books as well.
Jig
The woman waiting for the Madrid express in 'Hills Like White Elephants', arguing with the man she is travelling with about an operation.
The American
The unnamed man at the Spanish railway station in 'Hills Like White Elephants', talking the woman with him towards an operation.
Zurito
The retired picador Manuel Garcia asks for one last favour in 'The Undefeated' — a big man with enormous hands.
Ole Andreson
A Swedish former heavyweight boxer whom two gunmen come to a small American town to kill in 'The Killers'. He will not run.
Al
One of the two gunmen in 'The Killers' — the one who takes the kitchen, with the sawed-off shotgun.
Max
The other gunman in 'The Killers' — he sits at the counter, watches the mirror, and explains what they have come to do.
George
The counterman at Henry's lunch-room in 'The Killers', who keeps two gunmen in conversation for two hours.
Jerry Doyle
The narrator of 'Fifty Grand' — Jack Brennan's trainer, and the only person the fighter calls a friend.
Also in the book
Retana
The Madrid bullfight promoter in 'The Undefeated', who gives Manuel Garcia the cheapest job he has.
Walcott
The younger, heavier-hitting fighter Jack Brennan defends his welterweight title against in 'Fifty Grand'.
Danny Hogan
The owner of the New Jersey health farm where Jack Brennan trains in 'Fifty Grand'.
Fuentes
A young banderillero in 'The Undefeated', whose work with the barbed sticks draws the loudest cheers of the night.
Sam
The cook at Henry's lunch-room in 'The Killers', tied up in his own kitchen and wanting no part of what follows.
From the Journal
Stories in its pages
Today Is Friday
Three Roman soldiers drink in a bar on the evening of the crucifixion and go over the day's work in the flat shop-talk of men after a shift — Hemingway's only venture into scripture, conducted entirely in banter with the ground opening underneath it. The playlet was printed alone in 1926 as a small limited pamphlet, a year before this collection absorbed it.
Timeline
1926
The crucifixion playlet "Today Is Friday" is printed on its own as a small limited-edition pamphlet.
1927
Scribner publishes the collection, fourteen stories including "The Killers" and "Hills Like White Elephants," the year after The Sun Also Rises.
1927
Virginia Woolf reviews it warily, praising the skill and questioning the swagger.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Scribner
- 1927
- Paperback
- Scribner
- 9780684825861
Reader reviews
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In Our Time
The first collection — rawer, stranger, with the interchapters this one streamlines away.
Read our take
Men Without Women: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Men Without Women?
Ernest Hemingway. This story collection was published in 1927, the year after The Sun Also Rises.
What is Men Without Women?
A collection of fourteen short stories about boxers, bullfighters, hit men, soldiers, and couples talking carefully past the one subject that matters.
What are its most famous stories?
"The Killers" and "Hills Like White Elephants" — two of the most anthologized, imitated, and taught stories in the language.
What does the title mean?
It is the book's thesis: men stripped of women, and of everything else that softens them.
Why is the collection important?
It is the book that fixed the Hemingway short story as a form, running on his method of omission — what is left out doing the work.