Introduction Ernest Hemingway, the famous American novelist, is a giant of modern literature. In his early days, he was famous for being the representative of the lost generation. The theme of his works is to praise the sincerity and bravery of ordinary people. Hemingway himself is a hard man who likes to drink, hunt, fish, boxing, and skiing. Along with his prominent short stories, Hemingway#8217;s four major novels#8212;The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man a nd the Sea (1952)#8212;comprise a great contribution to modern fiction. Hemingway, produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, is the owner of the Nobel prize for literature in his novel The Old Man and the Sea in 1954 and the founder of the "news body" novel. After winning the price, Hemingway had a variety of diseases, caused him great physical and mental pain, not able to make a very influential works, which made him depressed, forming a negative mood. Finally he freed himself like his grandfather and father in the way of suicide. The whole world was shocked, and people were sighing for the death of the giant. Maybe this is also a pursuit of Hemingway's "hard man spirit". His works are unique in style and simple in literary form which are very influential in Europe and America. In 1932, Hemingway put forward the famous "iceberg principle" in his work The Death of the Afternoon. He said that the dignity of the movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. Taking "iceberg" as an analogy, he thinks that the author should only describe the part of the iceberg that is out of the water while the underwater part should be prompted by the text, so that readers can enjoy the space of imagination and supplement. The birth of the iceberg principle is closely associated with Hemingway#8217;s life experiences. After graduating from high school, he worked as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star for six months from which he quickly learned that truth often hides below the surface of a story. As a young journalist, Hemingway had to focus his newspaper reports on immediate events, with very little context or interpretation. When he became a writer of short stories, he retained this minimalistic style, focusing on surface elements without specifically discussing underlying themes. Hemingway believed the deeper meaning of a story should not be evident on the surface, but should be expressed implicitly. Hemingway#8217;s style, with its consistent use of short, concrete, direct prose and of scenes consisting exclusively of dialogue, gives his novels and short stories a distinctive accessibility that is immediately identifiable with the author. Ma Yuan, the novelist, thinks that the more inherent quality of "Iceberg Theory" can be summed up as "experience ellipsis". He pointed out that many commentators began to contrast Hemingway's ellipsis with the traditional blank theory. They thought it was the application of implicative technique which was a great mistake. What the traditional ellipsis omitted is sentiment and charm but Hemingway's omission is a completely different thing: solid experience. Owing to the direct character of both his style and his life-style, there is a inclination to cast Hemingway as a ”representative” American writer whose work reflects the stouthearted, forthright and rugged individualism of the American spirit in action. Literature Review The iceberg principle had a strong influence on#160;20th-century fiction and it still enjoys great literary value and research value in modern society, quite a number of theses have been written to discuss and analyse the application of the principle in Hemingway#8217;s works. Wang Jingfang and Wang Ye, taking The Old Man And The Sea as an example, point out that iceberg principle can hide the feelings and emotions in the images to the greatest extent, making the emotions rich but not exposed and the thought deep and hidden but not obscure. They also discuss that the charm of iceberg principle lying in the rigorous and concise "telegraph style", vivid life language and the expression way of containing more feelings within limited words. Another paper named A Good Example of Hemingway#8217;s Iceberg Principle: The killers written by Zhuang Xinyue argued that Hemingway#8217;s writing style benefits much from his various life experiences. This paper talks about iceberg principle by analyzing the main characters in the book which is very detailed. It is easy, from the paper, to see how Hemingway organize the story and understand many details between the lines. A paper written by Sun Cheng, like Zhuang, talks about The killers, too. However, he uses the iceberg theory to explore the meanings of every information. From every simple description of the character and from the dialogues of the characters in the book, he can analyze and find the real intention the writer with logic. So Zhuang is focused on the characters while Sun on the application of iceberg principle. Different from others, Liu Donglin discusses iceberg principle from two parts: hiding the rich emotional world of the characters and concealing the complex theme of the works. For the two parts, Liu chooses several typical novels and analyses them separately according to the two parts which is very clear for readers to get the information conveyed by the novels. Besides, Tang Renfang mentions the artistic means in her paper on The Old Man and The Sea and lists four aspects: subtle narrative techniques and simple words with deep meanings, "telegraphic" dialogues and profound symbolism. Moreover, Zhou Ye comments on the iceberg principle from a particular point of view. He points out that the iceberg principle is similar with the ”hide” and ”show” theory proposed by Liu Xie, a Chinese ancient literary critic. But Qin Chenghua and Liu Yuhong argu that ice principle is similar in the ”hide” part and different in the ”show” part in that Hemingway shows the theme with concise words while Liu Xie lays emphasis on excellent words or sentences. Anyway, they all agree that the iceberg principle has a strong guiding significance for literary creation. From the above I have mentioned, it is obvious to find that most people pay their attention on the application of the iceberg principle and the charm of it. Through my searching for the information about iceberg principle, I can barely find any paper writing about how does iceberg principle promote the development of the plot. In my paper, not only will I discuss about the application and charm of iceberg principle, but I will talk about the promotion of the development of the plot.