Hills Like White Elephants Feminist Analysis Essay

“Hills Like White Elephants” – A Battle of the Sexes

Every iconic story or tale describes a battle—be it the battle between good vs. evil or morality vs. immorality. But perhaps, one of the greatest battles to take place is the battle of the sexes. Through his short story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway offers an insight into this clash. The popular view of this story is that the male character exhibits dominance over the female, yet one must acknowledge the fact that, perhaps, this view is flawed. Hemingway’s narration of this story through a unique point-of-view and a dynamic female character named Jig serve as evidence that it is the female who wins this battle. Hemingway narrates this story uniquely through the third-person point of view and without focusing on either character. He offers almost no insight into the characters’ minds, and by doing so, Hemingway allows his readers to draw their own conclusions. This adds a genuine touch to the story. In reality, one can never know what someone else is thinking and has to rely on body language, tone inflection, and intuition. Hemingway takes his unbiased point of view one step further by removing the element of tone inflection while narrating the story. At no point does Hemingway reveal how a character responds. He merely states what they

Hemingway’s unique and unbiased point of view excludes the important detail of tone inflection, and readers will never know for sure what Hemingway intended the outcome to be. But in the past eighty-three years, people seem to almost unanimously agree that the man exhibits dominance in the relationship. However, evidence from Jig’s dynamic character and her body language strongly suggest that it is time to reevaluate the story and open up the possibility that Jig has been underestimated these past years, and more importantly, that it is she who wins this