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How Does Hemingway Create Tension In Hills Like White Elephant

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The Elephant in The Room Lack of communication can often be detrimental to a relationship, especially when a major life change is introduced. In Hemingway’s short story, “Hills Like White Elephants”, he portrays the issue through the two characters, the man and the girl’s, dialog and how he formats his writing. “Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story that takes place in Spain where a man and a girl wait at a train station. During their wait, the man and the girl partake of drinks, beer, and discuss an operation, presumably an abortion, that the man wants the girl to have. While abortion and having a child are two very serious topics, the man does not appear to be taking the situation sincerely, whereas the girl is more concerned. The man clearly does not want the girl to carry through the pregnancy, “we’ll be fine afterward, just like we were before” (Hemingway 361). The girl is silent at first and does …show more content…

After Hemingway sets up the scene for the short story in the beginning paragraph, he proceeds with statements from the characters that end with “the girl asked, the man said,” (Hemingway 359) and so on. After Hemingway’s initial introduction of the few characters, indication of who is speaking is very sparse throughout the rest of the story. This is because Hemingway wanted to transfer the couples lack of communication onto the reader. Also, Hemingway developed a short and simplistic dialog for the man and the girl. Most responses between the couple were only a few words to a sentence long, for instance, the girl made statements such as “all right” and “I guess so” (Hemingway 360), but would not elaborate much further on the matter. The format of “Hills Like White Elephants’ is choppy and lacking in detail, which serves a good purpose as far as getting Hemingway’s point

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Examples Of Ambiguity In Hills Like White Elephant By Ernest Hemingway

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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

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Hills Like White Elephants Symbolism

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Christian Carasa English Composition 28 April 2016 Research Paper In the short story, “The Hills Like White Elephants,” an assortment of symbolic and scenic settings are integrated into the story by Hemingway. Hemingway uses symbols to teach the reader situations people could come across throughout life. The use of symbols in “Hills Like White Elephants” is very important to the plot line and to the fundamental meaning of the story. Through this use of symbolism, the reader can begin to reveal the concealed themes in this short story.

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Hills Like White Elephants Literary Analysis

1554 Words | 7 Pages

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.

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Abortion In 'Hills Like White Elephants'

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Hills Like White Elephants Relationship Analysis

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The relationship between the American and the girl in “Hills Like White Elephants.” In the 1900s, there was a distinct relationship between a man and a woman, with each having their own traits. During this time, Ernest Hemingway also had his own idea of this relationship which he portrays in his story, “Hills Like White Elephants”. Within this story, the relationship between the two characters, the American and the girl, is portrayed as strained and distanced by their constant avoidance of the “elephant in the room”.

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Hills Like White Elephants Rhetorical Analysis

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Throughout their conversation, you can decipher a tone where the conversation sheds light on his feelings towards the procedure and her feelings. He says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig. It’s not really an operation at all” (Hemingway 124), in an effort to persuade her to in fact have the abortion. She, on the other hand, seems silent at first, but then questions how their life will be better after this procedure. Her uncertainty shows in her responses, and in other findings “… the sensuous beauty of a love relation that is quickly deteriorating, now that she has become conscious of her lover’s selfishness” (Maynard 273).

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Hills Like White Elephants Literary Criticism

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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.

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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.

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Hills Like White Elephants Character Analysis

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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.

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The Dialogue In Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1629 Words | 7 Pages

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.

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Character Analysis Of Jig In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1481 Words | 6 Pages

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.

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Symbolism In Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway

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The story titled, “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway is about a young American man and a woman, who is waiting at a railway station for a train that will take them to Madrid. They are drinking liquor as they wait and discusses what the American man says will be "a simple operation" for the girl. The man, while urging the girl to have the operation, says again and again that he really doesn 't want her to do it if she really doesn 't want to. However, he clearly is insisting that she do so. The girl is trying to decline to have the operation but the couple keeps arguing.

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Conflict, be it within oneself or with another person is oftentimes difficult to overcome in the best of circumstances, and it is arguably never more difficult than when the outcome is a matter of life and death. This theme of a power struggle is central to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, in which the characters known only as Jig and the American struggle to find a compromise which makes them both content while discussing Jig’s pregnancy and possible subsequent abortion. Hemingway uses several examples of symbolism including hills resembling white elephants, a bamboo bead curtain, and a railroad track to emphasize the separation which is driven between individuals in a relationship who fail to find a solution due to miscommunication. Indeed, remaining consistent with Hemingway’s iceberg style of writing, these seemingly simple examples of common elements of a Spanish railway station are representative of a much more complicated paradigm of human relationships.

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Use Of Communication In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1261 Words | 6 Pages

When reading any work of fiction, whether it be a short story or a poem, there is an expectation for something to happen or for some deeper meaning or understanding of a problem to become clear by the end of the work. However, in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, there is not a clear picture of anything that actually takes place within the text nor any deeper meaning to be understood from it upon the first reading. Without a clear story line, it becomes necessary to examine how Hemingway creates points of emphasis and importance through his patterns in dialogue. By analyzing the general form in which Hemingway wrote “Hills Like White Elephants” and focusing on the use of communication and dialogue present in the short story,

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Hills Like White Elephants

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The dialogue and symbolism in this part indicate she wants the baby and thinks it beautiful as the hills. She believes if she has the abortion, her life is going to be brown and dry with no life and no

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