Hills Like White Elephants Essay

“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is a short story outlining a conversation between a girl called Jig and an unnamed man referred to as the American Man. Throughout the story the two are discussing a topic, but never deliberately say it in the text, however it is implied that they are debating abortion. Jig and the American Man are in a relationship and she becomes pregnant, but the American wants Jig to get rid of the baby. Looking past the actual story, readers can see certain literary devices used in the story. For example, Hemingway uses writing style, symbolism, effect of the tone, and setting to portray certain feelings and thought to the readers through these devices.
Like any other story or poem, the writing style has a big impact on the readers. It is one way the audience connects with the writer. The majority of the writing in this short story is dialogue between Jig and The American Man. A conversation within a story can move the plot quickly or slowly depending on how the writer uses it in their text. For example in this particular writing, Hemingway has quick and direct responses to the two characters such as “We can have everything,” and “No, we can’t.” This

can also express certain feelings the character has about one another or something else. With the story, being a dialogue between the two, it seems more relaxing for the readers to focus on and understand the feelings of the characters. There are several examples of Hemingway wanting to the audience to connect with the characters. For example, Hemingway wants readers to feel sad or expresses that Jig is sad by saying, “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me,” and “Oh, yes. But I don’t care about me. And I’ll do it and then everything will be fine.”
The next literary device that Hemingway uses is the effect of the tone to the readers. Just like in everyday conversation, tone has an effect on the way people take the sentence or in this case text. Similar to the way dialogue makes people understand the way the characters feel, so does tone. The tone and dialogue work together to help the readers understand the situation more completely. An example of this is “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It is really not anything. It’s just to let the air in,” said the American man. Readers can see this, as he wants her to have the abortion now. This can seem as he is anxious about them having a baby and needs the child gone.
However, the tone is not just in the dialogue, but the text as a whole. With the text being fast and direct, it portrays a conflict between the two characters. It shows that Jig is sad and that American Man is anxious about the baby. Throughout the text, it is serious about the conflict, but Jig does put in some sarcastic comments or childish comments such as, “Everything tastes like licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.” This brings light to the conversation, but also makes a barrier between the two what they want for each other.
Finally, one of some of the devices Hemingway uses is symbolism.

Symbolism has a major role in the modernistic period as well as it does today. A title is the name of the whole text and has a part in why the story is called “Hills Like White Elephants.” First glance at this story, readers expect it to be about hills or even about the wild, but when reading this, it is clear that it is not about either of those, but it is included in the text. Jig says, “They look like white elephants,” while she was looking out the hills in the distance. This could symbolize several things based on the way that the audience interprets it. I interpret it as she looks out to the hills wishing she could have a better life, but she could never see it similar to the way you never see white

elephants.
The setting also has a symbolism with the story as well. The story is set in a train station while the two wait on their train to come. Train stations are associated with a place for people to sit and wait on their train which can normally take a lot of time. This symbolizes as a place where their relationship is a stopping situation. Neither of them know what they want in their relationship with the pregnancy blocking their feelings. Another big symbolism in this story is the bamboo curtain that blocks them from the rest of the world. During their conversation she grabs the curtain to represent the breaking of their connect between each other. It keeps not only them separated from the world, but brings them further apart from each other as well.
Ernest Hemingway chose several literary devices to connect with the readers and make the text a joy to read overall. He used the writing style, symbolism, effect of the tone, and portraying the feelings of the characters to help us understand the meaning behind the story. These devices not only shed light on a sensitive issue but also formed a story that envelopes Modernistic ideals.