in the essay " hills like White Elephant " the author uses a hesitant and confused tone to express and reaveal the complexities of loss.Earnest Hemingway show the primarily conversation between the American man and his girlfriend, neither of the speakers truly communicates with the other in agreement avoiding responsibility or blame . Both talk, but neither listens or understands the other’s point of view.
Hemingway also used figurative languages and context clues that we can infer from the stories that jig the female has a very low self esteem when she said in page 477 "and if i do it you'll be happy and things will go back to like they were before " this show she is very insecure about her self she is less assertive and persuasive.
Concrete Details/Imagery Gallien starts to notice the settings around him while he is on his way to drop Alex off. “For the first few miles the stampede trail was well graded and led past cabins scattered among weedy stands of spruce and aspen. Beyond the last of the log shacks, however, the road rapidly deteriorated” (Kraukaur 2). This quote creates of visual of the quick change from rural civilization to deep and dense forest.
Black or White Hills: The Resolution of Hills Like White Elephants Hemingway is known as a master of the Iceberg Theory, which his short story Hills like White Elephants is a prime example of. The short story feels a lot like a fragment of a longer story – beginning and end are left up to the reader’s imagination and the story is mainly based around a single topic: the fate of their unborn child. It is a story about a couple in Spain waiting for a train. They have a couple of drinks and attempt to decide whether to go through with an abortion or not.
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.
Lane Jr. who's struggling with his faith will support and stand by Sheri and her decision concerning the pregnancy. Ernest Hemingway's" Hills Like White Elephants” allows his readers to come to the conclusion as to whether the couple in question will terminate or keep the unborn child. As Jig, and the American are
Nevertheless, Ernest Hemingway soon shows that this relationship contains a rift. This becomes apparent once they try conversing to one another. The girl attempts to spark a conversation by mentioning that the hills look like white elephants, but this topic soon turns hostile with the American’s replies. How this conversation is handled already shows that the couple “are trapped in a state of imbalance and disagreement” from the beginning (Link). The problem with the conversation is that the American’s personality of being simple and serious.
In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, there is a relationship unfolding, a complex relationship difficult to understand. The relationship is revealed by a conversation between a man and a woman, a topic of conversation that people rarely discussed in the period that the story was set. After researching interpretations, it is consistently said “She is pregnant, and he wants her to have an abortion” (Weeks 76), to which I agree that this conversation is about abortion. With the man seemingly pushing the topic and the girl hesitant and questionable, it is unsure as to the result of their conversation. However, it is my belief that she chose to follow her heart and not get the abortion.
For example, when she said, “And if I do it you will be happy, and things will be like they were.” (255), she is lonely and desperate girl who is still having hope of being happy. She is in a bad mood and depressed too much to even ready to die, it is obvious from her reply, “I don’t care about me” (255) multiple times, waiting for him to say nice words or even make her feel good. He seems as being selfish and careless by starting this relationship and then lacking the support Jig needs from him. Hills Like White Elephant has a huge description on the story’s sitting in the train station, surrounded with hills, fields, and tress in a valley in Spain.
Symbolism in Hills Like White Elephants In short stories, because of the length of the story, all actions, words, and objects carry more of a meaning. These are referred to as symbols. Symbols represent something important without really saying anything, but more seeing and visualizing something. Symbolism creates a needed depth and allows the reader to think more creatively.
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.
In the short story, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway from the start makes us draw out our own conclusions and does not give us a great deal of information. For example, we are only told about two characters, an American man and a girl who are waiting for their train to arrive. Other than this, we are not told what relationship the characters share together or where their final destination is. The protagonist who is referred to as “the girl” is in the middle of a tragic situation which can take a turn for the best or the worst and her partner, the “American man” is not helping but making the situation more heated.
In his story “Hills Like White Elephants”, Ernest Hemingway points out the couple's inability to make the decision: whether to abort the unborn child or not. The reader finds that the story deals with couple's miscommunication through the conversation and the emotions that they express. One can observe that no descriptions are given to the characters, thus, Hemingway creates universal dilemma to focus on the crucial issue. In this way, Hemingway leads the reader to identify with his female character that undergoes a struggle.
They each bring up different points as to why throughout the story. In Earnest Hemingway’s short story Hills like White Elephants written in 1927 he uses the hills themselves, the scenery that the couple is surrounded by, and the beaded curtain as symbols to describe the situation that the couple faces. In this short story, the hills that the train station overlook are compared to white elephants. This is because the conversation Jig is wanting to have with the American consists of whether or not to keep the
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.
Even though it is not said directly, it is still easy for the audience to understand that what Jig and her boyfriend are talking about is a woman’s matter. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Hemingway does not reveal the underlying meaning, but rather uses symbolism in his story through Jig’s attitude towards her boyfriend, the station in which the couple is at, and the absinthe drink she tries. Jig has an attitude about her that makes seem childish. She repeats her words as if she were a young child would when they want something they cannot have.
By using a limiting third person point of view that consists mostly of dialogue, Hemingway creates an obstacle as there is no 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 mountain. One of the most notable facets of “Hills Like White Elephants” is the repetition of sentences throughout the short story. With the story running at barely two thousand words, the repetition of these key phrases stands out among the dialogue. The phrase from which the title comes from, “like white elephants”, reoccurs five times within the text.