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The setting of the story hills like white elephants
In the short story, "hills like white elephants," the hills in the setting symbolize what
In the short story, "hills like white elephants," the hills in the setting symbolize what
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The Iceberg Principle that Hemingway is so fond of, has already given rise to many discussions over the years. Giving away only a tip of it, Hemingway leaves us behind with a great amount of mystery in his stories.
While reading his short story ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, we ask ourselves many questions due to this principle, but first and foremost we ask ourselves: will the girl (the main role in the story) eventually have an abortion or not?
The short story ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, written by Ernest Hemingway, tells us about a man and a girl ( also known as ‘Jig’) who are waiting for their train to Madrid in a small train station. While they are waiting, they have a discussion about the girl’s pregnancy. They discuss whether they should let the child be removed or not, although the abortion is never explicitly mentioned in the story.
While reading the story thoroughly, I came to my conclusion: the girl will eventually go through with the abortion. However, she will not stay with the man. In the article from the Hemingway Review: ‘Hills Like White Elephants: The Jilting of Jig’, a similar point of view is presented by critic Howard Hannum. He believes that the girl will have the abortion, but after the operation, she will leave the man. He states that, ‘it is a
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White elephants are seen as something quite special and rare, exactly like her unborn child is to her. The man will not follow her in that idea, he is not open to it, which makes it even harder for the girl not to go through with the abortion. As said in ‘Reading Hemingway’s ‘Men Without Women’ by Joseph M. Flora: ‘the girl is eager to his advice. She wants guidance and she wants her choice to be good.’(page unknown). Because the man wants her to have the abortion, she might do it, just because he wants her to and he believes it is the best thing to
Ernest Hemingway has a superbly unique style of writing in Hills Like White Elephants. His short, to the point syntax and sentence style plays a great role in helping readers understand the theme of this short story. The critique M.A.K. Halliday observed, “The story is frequently generated by the repetition of words, clauses, and groups of related words or ethical sets” (Link, Alex). The first set of dialogue that can be pulled from this story is story is short and to the point. The American states, “We can have the whole world.” Jig replies with “No, we can’t” (Hemingway, Ernest). The sentence length is very short, yet there is a hidden meaning behind the small talk. Jig is referring to not having the baby. She can have everything, but her will to decide things. She can’t have a baby due to unloving pressure from the American. It is in sync with the tone of the story perfectly. The tone is forward, direct, and shallow. That is exactly what happens in this dialogue. There is no emotion, just pure sarcasm on a huge topic. Abortion to this couple is nothing more then a qui...
The communication going on between the man and girl in the story, "Hills Like White Elephants,'; are not an honest one. The man seems to lead the conversation where as the girl is quiet. He brings up the subject of 'operation' which suggested abortion, but never mentions the word 'abortion' in the story to understate it. He tries to convince the girl to get the operation, but the girl seems bothered by this subject. However, he does not stop. Their relationship seems to be fine when the baby has not came in between them. We could see this where the guy says, "We'll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.'; The girl wants the relationship to become as before, but is in a huge dilemma whether to give birth to the baby or not. The man does not want the baby and has the choice of abortion in mind, not thinking of the other problems that would occur through operation such as the girl's health. Later on, the girl makes a melancholy remark that the hills look like white elephants. Probably the hills being a round shape reminded her of the baby. She walks toward the end of the station, and sees the beautiful nature. When she looks more toward the nature, one could see her small desire wanting the baby and thinks what may have been happened if she had the baby. The guy does not pay attention to that remark, because he is just concerned about making his point that he wants the operation done, not considering her side.
Hills like White Elephants takes place in the early twenties, a time when abortions were not only illegal, but negatively impacted ones reputation detrimentally. In the 1920’s, some 15,000 women a year died from abortions because they were shamed into having them done illegally by those who were not medically trained to perform such an operation. (Pollitt) This was because of the extreme prejudice against women and their rights to their own bodies and to making their own decisions. In a time where a woman was viewed as her husband’s property, Jig is torn between making the decision she feels is right and the decision that she is being told is
“The Hills as White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, tells a story about a couple who are expecting a baby, but want to have an abortion. The setting of the story takes places at a bar situated across of a train station in Madrid, Spain. The couple sits by the bar, and order some drinks. They began discussing about whether or not having the abortion. While they wait for the train the man convince the girl. Within the two works there are many similarities but also differences between the central idea, conflict and the language devices.
Hemingway provides the reader with insight into this story, before it is even read, through the title. The girl in the story mentions the hills that can be seen from the train station and describes them as looking like white elephants. Jig is at a crossroads in her life, accompanied by her partner. She is pregnant and cannot decide whether to choose life for the baby, or to get an abortion. Throughout the story, she experiences persistent uncertainty over what she wants to do with her life. Whatever decision she makes will have a drastic impact in her later years as a woman. While seated at the bar inside the train station, the girl says, “The hills look like white elephants” (Hemingway). The hills that are spotted in the distance directly parallel the decision that Jig must make. Critic Kenneth Johnston was recorded stating, “A white elephant is a rare pale-gray variety of an Asian elephant held sacred by the Burmese and Siamese. The girl’s reverence for life is captured by this meaning of the phrase.” Johnston also says, “A white ...
The theme of physical and emotional burdens has a strong connection to Hemingway 's life. Hemingways alcoholism was more of a physical burden as it caused him to have liver disease whereas his fight with depression was more so of an emotional burden. However, the physical and emotional burdens in “Hills Like White Elephants” is focused around a completely different topic than depression or alcoholism. “Hills Like White Elephants” main focus is on a woman named Jig and her lover whose name is never told. All the readers know it that he is an American man. Jig is currently pregnant with what seems to be an unplanned and unwanted child, at least from the point of view of Jigs boyfriend. The couple begins to talk about the pregnancy and, at first, it seems that they have both agreed that the child should be aborted. However, as Jig and her boyfriend continue their conversation about the baby it becomes painfully clear that Jig does not want to have an abortion. Instead, the only reason that she is even considering the abortion is because her American lover does not want the baby and continuously tries to persuade her into having the abortion by emphasizing how simple the procedure will be. Jig’s boyfriend notices how apprehensive she is and tells her that if she truly doesn’t want to do it he’ll support her decision but also tells her that her having the abortion will make their relationship happy once again. Once again insinuating that it is the best decision. Jigg agrees to the abortion but only because she says she “does not care about herself”. Jiggs agreement to the abortion while also saying that the reason she is agreeing is due to her not caring about herself shows just how heavy of an emotional burden she is carrying. Jig loves her boyfriend and wants him to be happy, however, she wants to keep her baby. This causes
‘Hills Like White Elephants’ is a short story authored by Ernest Hemingway about an American and a girl named Jig. In the story, the two are sitting in a train station waiting for the train to Madrid. While they wait, they have an intense ongoing debate on whether or not to abort Jig. At the end of the story, the train is about to arrive and the man carries luggage on the tracks as they prepare to leave. The end of the story does not clearly define the outcome of its decision. She said I feel good at the end of the story - happiness is a central theme of the story, but we wonder if she went through with the operation. The paper discusses the manner in which symbolism has been employed in the story to communicate about an abortion, the couple is considering to go through.
Renner, Stanley "Moving to the Girl's Side of `Hills Like White Elephants'." The Hemingway Review, 15 (1) (Fall 1995): 27-41. As Rpt. in Wyche, David "Letting the Air into a Relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in `Hills Like White Elephants'. The Hemingway Review, 22 (1) (Fall 2002): 56-71. EBSCOhost.
Hills Like White Elephants displays the differences in the way a man and a woman view pregnancy and abortion. The woman looks at pregnancy as a beautiful aspect of life. In the story the woman’s pregnancy is implied through their conversation. She refers to the near by hills as elephants; "They look like white elephants" (464). She is comparing the hills to her own situation, pregnancy. "They’re lovely hills. They really don’t look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees" (465). Just as the hills have their distinct beauty to her, she views pregnancy in the same fashion making the reference to the hills having skin—an enlarged mound forming off of what was once flat. The man views pregnancy just the opposite. When the girl is talking about the white elephants and agrees that the man has never seen one, his response is, "I might have, just because you say I haven’t doesn’t prove anything" (464). This shows the defensive nature of the man, and when the woman implies the he is unable to differentiate between what is beautiful and what is not.
In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” the character Jig is submissive to her counterpart The American Man, who is encouraging her to have an abortion. While Jig is not sure what she wants, she does not wish to press the subject of the operation because The American Man is intent upon persuading her to go through with the procedure. Throughout this story Jig’s helplessness, indecisiveness, and her lack of education become apparent, although by the end of the story she becomes confident, decisive, and ultimately takes back control of her decisions and life.
Analysis of Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway In “Hills Like White Elephants” Ernest Hemingway relies on symbolism to convey the theme of abortion. The symbolic material objects, as well as the strong symbolic characters, aid the reader’s understanding of the underlying theme. The material objects that Hemingway uses to convey the theme are beer, the good and bad hillsides, and a railroad station between two tracks. The beer represents the couple’s, “the American” and “the girl’s”, routine activities they do together.
Hemingway, considered to be a modernist writer, makes his readers work by implementing the well-known theory of omission, which “Hills Like White Elephants” is a perfect example of. As he stated in Death in the Afternoon : ‘If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, […].’ (259). It seems that Hemingway assumed the reader would know what is being omitted, nevertheless many features of “Hills Like White Elephants” have already been covered by various critics. At the end of the story the reader is forced to unravel the most...
In the short story by Ernest Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants," a couple is delayed at a train station en route to Madrid and is observed in conflict over the girl's impending abortion. In his writing, Hemingway does not offer any commentary through a specific character's point of view, nor, in the storytelling, does he offer his explicit opinions on how to feel or think about the issues that emerge. The narrative seems to be purely objective, somewhat like a newspaper or journal article, and in true Hemingway form the story ends abruptly, without the couple's conflict clearly being resolved. The ambiguity of the ending has been a subject of much debate; however, the impact of what is not said in words can be gleaned through the symbolism of their surroundings. Upon examination of the setting, the couple's final choice becomes instantly apparent.
When a woman gets pregnant, she and her partner make a serious decision whether they should give birth to the unborn child or abort it. However, sometimes every couple can have a different outlook about giving birth or aborting because every male and female has his or her ways of thinking. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the author, Ernest Hemingway tells a story of an American man and his girlfriend, Jig, who have a disagreement in the train station on the subject of whether to keep the unborn child or to abort. However, the author uses binary opposition of life and death to portray the polemic argument a couple encounters regarding abortion. As a symbol for the binary opposition of life and death, he represents the couple’s expressions, feelings, and the description of nature.
This short story is filled with symbolism, some of which the reader may never find. The title itself can be analyzed a lot deeper. The “hills” refers to the shape of the female body during pregnancy and the “white elephants” symbolize a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit (merriam-webster.com). The story is about a man and a woman taking a train to get an abortion. The train is supposed to show change and movement, something this couple appears to need because their life is very routine.