Title
The Rest Is Silence: A Psychoanalytic Study of Hemingway’s Theory of Omission and Its Application to "The Sea Change"
Document Type
Article
Annotation
On Hemingway’s use of silence as a means of communicating the inexpressible in language. Nakjavani equates silence with the unconscious and Hemingway’s practice of omission, claiming they are the essence of a text and provide infinite interpretations. Theorizes that a “blockage” in the conversation between Phil and the girl punctuates the approach and retreat into silence, as well as the quest for understanding the unstated in the text. Concludes that the story “resembles the psychoanalytic process to the extent that it reads backward to enable it to read forward to comprehend the past to makes sense of the present.”
Published in
North Dakota Quarterly
Volume
65
Issue
3
Date
1998
Pages
145-173
Citation
Nakjavani, Erik. “The Rest Is Silence: A Psychoanalytic Study of Hemingway’s Theory of Omission and Its Application to ‘The Sea Change.’” North Dakota Quarterly 65, no. 3 (1998): 145-73.