One main theme in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is the idea of disconnection. In this story, we eavesdrop on a conversation held between both characters. In their dialogue, conflict is created as the characters face what most readers believe to be the obstacle of unexpected pregnancy. This is assumed through symbolism and the titles meaning. The term “white elephant” was used for an unwanted gift.
Hemingway used a simple story to hide a deep, sensitive message for his readers to discover for themselves. He wanted people to put more thought into reading his story, therefore he left it up the oneself to discover hidden messages. Hemingway hid clues of abortion through the usage of white elephants, the drinking habits of the two characters, and the landscape. Never once did he straight up tell the readers that the two characters were having a secret, coded discussion about abortion. Things are not always what they
Next, it would seem that the involvement of reader to understand the characters in “Good People” is greater than in “Hills Like White Elephants”. Based on these two short stories, Wallace introduces his idea through the minds of his characters, which is Lane and Sheri. Yet Hemingway uses a documentary style such as dialogue in order to express the idea of abortion. The differences in their writing can make the reader either to understand their stories and their characters
Jig, the Spanish woman, is eager to keep the unborn child as the American man who is the father is not. 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
It is also brought to attention by the little ideas brought forth by the setting and characters’ personal analysis of the situation. The elements of the story, such as the setting, characters, and points of symbolism, reinforce the idea that the characters are at a crossroads. The setting of the story itself portrays the theme of being at a crossroads. The story begins with an American man and a women sitting at a train station. The setting helps to emphasize that the characters are at a crossroads because the girl can either go with the man or she can go on her own.
Symbolism shown in this short story is when the girl said “But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”(Hemingway 275). She is referring to how she wants the baby and not have the operation. This decision is really risky for the girl she does not know if this is going to affect the relationship or not. The man does not really want a baby and tries to convince her otherwise. Not really thinking about the fact that the girl really wants this baby.
It seems as though the American wants to just toss her aside, because she is troublesome, and means so little to him. This same white elephant symbolism holds true in the case of the baby, as it is clearly unexpected, and moreso perhaps, unwanted by both parties to some degree. Even the mother herself doesn’t want the baby to some extent, because it would probably mean losing the man. This becomes clear, given her willingness to get an abortion it when she thinks about her life with the man going back to normal if she does. “And if I do it you’ll be happy, and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” (Hemingway 277).
In this excerpt of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway establishes an attitude of detachment in a young girl named Jig. She travels with an American man on a train through the Ebro River valley in Spain, having a terse discussion. The man, the father of Jig’s child, tries to persuade her into getting an abortion, but his words roll off her shoulders she gazes at the white hills in the distance. Jig’s aloofness is conveyed through her lack of interest in conversing with the man. When he tells her that the abortion is an “awfully simple operation”, she “[looks] at the ground the table rested on” (314).
Such details include the title, which can be expressed as a metaphor of an unwanted, unexpected, awkward situation. Multiple scholars and authors decide to make an effort to discover the story’s true meaning. For example, Stanley Renner, from Illinois State University, author of, “Moving to the Girl’s Side of ‘Hills Like White Elephants,’” discovers four specific movements of both characters.
Ernest Hemingway, a well-known modernist writer, adopts the iceberg principle, a typical feature of modernist literature in his works. According to this principle, the top represents the given story, while the foot depicts the concealed story. This principle restricts the writer’s dictatorship, the reader however has to pay a price. The writer only provides, mostly vague, information, it is now up to the reader to