The use of minimalist prose to make a point.
The point of the "Story" and the ambiguity of the words is to prove how informal words are as a symbol. Their meaning depends not only entirely on its reading having life experiences, but also the reader having the mindset to assume the worst whenever they read anything, hence why people frequently assume that the story has a negative connotation implied by its sparse words, and whoever wrote the story, regardless of whether it was Ernest Hemingway or someone else, most likely anticipated the audience would react this way to the words. The point of the story is to prove that it's the reader or the author that gives the words merit and an idea behind them, not just the words themselves.
