Hills Like White Elephants Essay

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In this short story” Hills like White Elephants” written by Ernest Hemingway, one of the main characters is called as “the man” or “ the American”. Through the entire story, there is no descriptions about the background information of this American. When the story starts, the man and his girlfriend is waiting at the train station in Spain. Through their conversation, it is clear to see that his girlfriend recently becomes pregnant. From the description of their luggages “ There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.” (Hemingway), the man must have a romantic relationship with this girl and they enjoy themselves during these trips. Even though, the author doesn’t show any clues about this American, we can still …show more content…

He pays no attention to the outside when the girl mentions “ the two hills look like white elephants”. While the girl seems reluctant to take an abortion, the man tries to persuade her “ I'll go with you and I'll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it's all perfectly natural.” (Hemingway) He claims that their relationship will turn to normal and they will be happy as before if the girl have an abortion. From these dialogue, this American is clearly a man who is powerful in this relationship. He is selfish and egoistic when he mentioned the word “ simple” several times in his talks, such as “I won't worry about that because it's perfectly simple” (Hemingway). Even though he seems to be very emotional in this conversation, he never cares about the girl’s feeling and the potential physical damage on her. We can have a feeling that this man is not honesty towards the girl. In other words, he is fraudulent. From the beginning of the story, this man is thinking about how to persuade the girl to take the action. When he notices the girl talks with hesitation and not willing to have an abortion, he shows his sympathy by saying " I think it's the best thing to do. But I don't want you to do it if you don't really want to." (Hemingway) However, these talks are not convincing because he

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