Short stories are fast anecdotes, quickly delivering a message to a reader. Typically, they are one-thousand to twenty-thousand words long. There is a small emotional impact – especially compared to larger pieces of literature – but the theme is still conveyed. And there are countless themes when writing stories. Nonetheless, observing the many aspects of literature in short stories, there are always similarities within the differences. One story is Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. The short story describes an American man and woman – named Jig – drinking at a bar. They love one another; the man wants Jig to do a simple operation, relieving them of stress and leading them towards a happy life together. However, it is a tough …show more content…
The settings are completely different, as the couple is in a bar while the wolf-girls are in a church. Specifically, Hemingway’s story takes place in Spain, while Russell’s story is inspired by her upbringing in the Florida Everglades, a swamp similar to the outside in the story. Also, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is much longer than Hills Like White Elephants, resulting in more detail as well as many more characters which are static, dynamic, flat, or round compared to Hemingway’s three flat, static characters. On top of that, the styles are different, somewhat due to the time periods they were written in; St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves was created in 2006, while Hills Like White Elephants was written in 1927. Hemingway’s story can be an allegory for the debate regarding abortion, saying it should be allowed, while Russell holds symbolism representing change in a person. The long-lasting argument was talked about in the 1920s, and still is discussed …show more content…
Besides the plots themselves, the setting Paley made is unknown; possibly a home or hospital, due to the father being 86 years old and bedridden (50) compared to a bar in Spain. Hills Like White Elephants is a third-person narrative in the past-tense, while A Conversation with My Father is first-person in the present-tense. A Conversation with My Father is also written in a slightly-modern prose compared to Hills Like White Elephants; Paley published her writing in 1974 compared to Hemingway writing Hills Like White Elephants 47 years earlier. Both ended up being conventional, or in modern writing during their
In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway employs characterization and diction to illustrate that men can be very powerful and horrible. While introducing the characters the narrator says, “The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building” (1). Ernest Hemingway uses diction to emphasize that there is an American man and a foreign girl. He wants readers to consider that the man has power because he is more experienced than the underage girl. After telling her it’s her decision and trying to sway her decision he reveals “‘I think it’s the best thing to do.
Short stories are a delicacy in literature. Some short stories have comparable plots, themes, or even characters. Lucynell Crater from “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor and Maggie Johnson from “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker are two controversial women created in the American Literature movement. Lucynell and Maggie are both vulnerable characters that depend on others for survival in life through different experiences of innocence, race, and class in the American South.
Ernest Hemingway uses repetition and ambiguity in his story, “Hills like White Elephants'' to exhibit the idea that in order to maintain a healthy long-term relationship, communication and consideration of one another’s values are needed. Throughout this story, a couple, Jig and the American, are having an intense and emotional conversation about whether Jig should have an abortion. She displays very sensitive feelings about the procedure, and the American takes advantage of this by trying to manipulate her, repeatedly stating it is her choice: “if [she doesn’t] want to [she doesn’t] have to. [He] wouldn’t have [her] do it if [she] didn’t want to” (477). By doing this he falsely implies he has no opinion, but later contradicts himself by
The Female Desire to be Free The story takes in place in the 1920’s. During that era, women were living under the influence of men. They were not so free to make decisions for themselves without being judged upon by society. Seeing a pregnant woman who was unwed was viewed upon negatively.
I am impressed with the variety of literary terms expressed within the short stories that we are considering for publication, and the vast array of genres they represent. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is an exciting horror-fiction story, expressed through characterization and flashback. I enjoyed the Naturalism of “To Build a Fire,” brought to life through setting and imagery. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is a modernist short story that caused me to reflect on the realities of age and loneliness through the use of unique points of view. African-American fiction is represented by “Sonny’s Blues,” expressed through the conflict and resolution of the relationship between two brothers, ending in an epiphany.
“Elephants like white hills” by Ernest Heming way is set in Barcelona with a man and a woman deciding on their future, while as in “Going for a Beer” by Robert Coover was set in a town with a man who find his life flashing before his eyes and regretting on his past mistakes. As these two stories had completely different themes, they used different word structures. In “Elephants like White hills,” Erenst hemming way used a method of not revealing many things about the characters in the story’s beginning plot and letting the audience develop their own opinions
In the stories “Popular Mechanics”, written by Raymond Carver, and “Hills Like White Elephants”, written by Ernest Hemingway, show the struggles that sometimes happens while being in a relationship. In “Popular Mechanics” Carver shows the struggle of being cheated on and the fight between the couple over their baby. The baby becomes more of an item when they fight trying to show who is a better person and parent. In “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway shows that not everyone wants to have a baby and that it can change your life drastically. The couples in “Popular Mechanics” and “Hills Like White Elephants” are arguing over a baby, are splitting up, and the stories have settings that represent what is happening.
Throughout the short story (1), “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway is speaking about a seemingly unwanted pregnancy and a woman’s uneasiness with going through an abortion. However, Hemingway never explicitly says in this work of fiction (2) that it is about abortion or that the woman, Jig, is uncomfortable with it, but uses symbolism (3) to present this to the audience. At the time “Hills like White Elephants” was published, in 1927, abortion was illegal in most places and a very taboo subject that wasn’t to be openly discussed in public. Thus, Hemingway relied greatly upon the use of symbolism to get his message across for this reason as well as the third person narrator (4) that did not give insight into the character’s thoughts within this piece of literature (5) . He uses symbols such as the train station, white hills, the baggage, and the drinks to point towards the underlying internal conflict (6) of Jig’s decision that is being heavily influenced by the American man, who wants Jig to get the abortion.
Hills Like White Elephant is a short story by Earnest Hemingway from 1927. The story is talking about a failing relationship between an American man and his girlfriend. This couple is at a critical point on their lives. At the bar in a train station in Spain, the girl, Jig, does not want to end up her pregnancy, but she is going to sacrifice the baby to satisfied him. Because he is critical of the exploitation of his girl’s feelings concerning the continuation of unbalanced relationship.
Relationships are the core of everything we do in life. We love someone, so we do something for them; we value someone 's opinion, so we respect them; we dislike someone, so we avoid them. Relationships cause people to act on their emotions which impact how and why they do the things they do. Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” is about a couple trying to come to a conclusion on a delicate matter. While the man strongly promotes his opinion the girl is hesitant but wants to do whatever will make him happy.
The dialogue in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” reveals a man’s and a woman’s incongruent conflict on abortion, and the author’s fundamentally feminist position is visible in the portrayal of the woman’s independent choice of whether or not to keep the baby she is carrying. The plot is very simple in the story which is less than 1500 words long. A woman and a man spend less than an hour on a hot summers day at a Spanish train station in the valley of Ebro as they are waiting for a train heading for Madrid. Their dialogue takes up most of the space and only few major actions take place.
If taken literally, Hemingway’s story is one in which very little happens. The story takes place in a train station in Spain where a couple argue about a vague event over drinks. From the very start of the short story, there is an overbearing uneasiness felt in the text as the unnamed male and the girl, Jig, hold what seems to be—on the surface—an innocent conversation. By using a limiting third person point of view that consists mostly of dialogue, Hemingway creates an obstacle in the way of understanding as there is no clear insight to what is going on inside of either party’s head. The conflict that the pair seem to be discussing is never named and it becomes the metaphorical elephant in the room much like the white elephants that Jig sees in the mountains.
Writing up a list of things that two short stories have in common would be easy. Drawing a Venn diagram would be easier yet. Writing an essay, however, is a little more strenuous. Discovering words that make sense compiled in to a sentence can be a challenge. Cutting to the chase instead, the two short stories I will be comparing and contrasting are The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and The Interlopers by Saki.
Aseem Maredia ENG 200 Marshall Kemp Short Story paper Short Stories play a very significant role in the evolution English literature. Every short story comprises of a main protagonist who is the soul the story. These characters provide the readers a personality to root for which spices up the storyline. Similarly the story “Brokeback mountain”, comprises for two very strong characters life a dramatically been changed along the narrative.
A Very Short Story Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the most significant fiction writers of the 20th century. He is famous for his specific style of writing, the so called iceberg theory, which is clearly seen in his short stories and novels. Undoubtedly the unique thing that makes his short stories so special is the fact that after you read them you get the main idea but there are many things that remain unspoken or have a deeper meaning. You have to reread the text and use your imagination to get the whole picture of the text.