Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1994 The tS ylistic Mechanics of Implicitness: Entailment, Presupposition, and Implicature in the Work of Ernest Hemingway and Tim O'Brien. Donna Glee Williams Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Williams, Donna Glee, "The tS ylistic Mechanics of Implicitness: Entailment, Presupposition, and Implicature in the Work of Ernest Hemingway and Tim O'Brien." (1994). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5768. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5768 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. 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Order Number 9502155 The stylistic mechanics of implicitness: Entailment, presupposition, and implicature in the work of Ernest Hemingway and Tim O’Brien Williams, Donna Glee, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1994 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, M l 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE STYLISTIC MECHANICS OF IMPLICITNESS; ENTAILMENT, PRESUPPOSITION, AND IMPLICATURE IN THE WORK OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY AND TIM O'BRIEN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Donna Glee Williams, R.N. B.A., Newcomb College of Tulane University, 1975 Diploma, Charity Hospital School of Nursing, 1981 M.F.A., Louisiana State University, 1990 May 1994 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would have been impossible without the unstinting help and support of Mary McCay, Betsy Petersen, Sophia Stone, and Susan Tucker; Eve and David Stone; Donald and Dortha Williams; Lee Isaacson; Charlie Thomas; Mark Andrews; and, of course, Frank Parker. 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................... ü LIST OF F I G U R E S ..................................... V ABSTRACT ......................................... vi I. INTRODUCTION ..................................... 1 A. General Remarks ............................. 1 B. Linguistic Theory ......................... 25 1. Entailment........................ 27 2. Presupposition.................... 31 3. Implicature . ..................... 34 a. General Remarks .............. 34 b. The Maxim of Quality ............ 38 c. The Maxim of Quantity............ 41 d. TheMaxim of Ma n n e r .............. 47 e. The Maxim of Relation............ 50 II. THE RECONCILIATION OF A STYLISTIC DILEMMA: HEMINGWAY'S IMPLICITNESS ........ 55 A. General Remarks ....................... 55 B. The Conflict .......................... 57 1. Factors Favoring Expression of Emotion . 57 2. Factors Favoring Non-Expression of E m o t i o n ........................... 60 a. Social Values ................... 60 b. Literary V a l u e s ................. 63 C. The Solution: Implicitness and the Iceberg . 68 1. Hemingway's Statements of Iceberg Theory 69 D. Analysis of Hemingway Texts in Terms of Presupposition, Entailment, and Implicature . 75 1. The Garden of E d e n ................... 76 2. The Sun Also R i s e s ................... 92 III. TIM O'BRIEN: IN PAPA'S FOOTSTEPS.............. 110 A. General Remarks ........................ 110 1. Biographical Information .............. 112 2. Critical Linkage with Hemingway .... 114 B. The Conflict .......................... 118 1. Factors Favoring Not Telling ......... 122 2. Factors Favoring Telling ............. 124 3. O'Brien's Statements of the Conflict . 127 C. Analysis of O'Brien Texts in Terms of Presupposition, Entailment, and Implicature . 131 1. Presupposition and Entailment ....... 132 2. Implicature: Maxim of Quality ......... 135 3. Implicature: Maxim of Quantity ......... 143 4. Implicature: Maxim of Manner .......... 148 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5. Implicature: Maxim of Relation........ 152 IV. CONCLUSION................................... 164 A. Ezra Pound's Vorticism ................... 165 B. Reader-Response Theory ................... 168 C. Quantum M e c hanics......................... 172 D. Gestalt Theory ........................... 175 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................... 181 VITA ............................................. 187 IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Children take pleasure in drawing lines between the numbered dots to make the image emerge.......................................... 8 Figure 1.2 Users of coloring books and paint-by- numbers sets entertain themselves by filling in blank outlines with color, making the forms emerge more vividly.................................... 9 Figure 1.3 A schematic representation of the truth relations involved in entailment............... 27 Figure 1.4 A schematic representation of the truth relations involved in mutual entailment, or paraphrase.................................... 28 Figure 1.5 A schematic representation of the truth relations involved in presupposition........... 31 Figure 1.6 A schematic representation of the truth relations involved in the presupposition of the denial of a proposition........................ 32 Figure 1.7 A schematic representation of the concepts introduced in this chapter..................... 53 Figure 4.1 In analytical geometry, the location of a point is specified by giving its coordinates along several axes. Pound found in this an analogy to the specification of a feeling state by juxtaposition of several poetic images......... 167 Figure 4.2 The Gestalt principle of continuity suggests that forms will be seen as parts of a whole if they carry on each other's direction, movement, or shape............................ 177 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT The discipline of linguistics has identified three patterns through which unstated information may be conveyed: entailment, presupposition, and implicature. Using these theoretical constructs, analysts may determine systematically how propositions which are never asserted may nonetheless be communicated. In the old writers' maxim "Show me; don't tell me," "showing" corresponds to implicit communication of unstated material, while "telling" corresponds to the overt assertion of the proposition of interest. Examination of texts by Hemingway and O'Brien reveals carefully controlled use of the linguistic strategies of implicitness to suspend meaning between and behind the fixed points of the words on the page. This implicitness relates to the ambivalence both authors felt toward their artistic projects: Hemingway with regard to expressing emotion and O'Brien with regard to telling the truth about Vietnam. The linguistic mechanics of implicitness may explain the intuitions of Reader-Response Theory that meaning occurs in the interaction of reader with text. They are also related to Gestalt theory, quantum mechanics, and vorticism. VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright