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Important symbolisms in hills like white elephants
Important symbolisms in hills like white elephants
The main theme of the story of Hills Like White Elephants
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The short story "Hills like White Elephants," the author starts off with two characters having a conversation, which happens to be an American man with an unknown name and a young woman named Jig. The central conflict is created in the beginning of the story through finding out that the main characters that are facing an unexpected pregnancy. Hemmingway the author wrote and published this story in 1927. While reading the story the reader is able to know where the story is taking place. The plot of the story ends up being at a train station located in Spain surrounded by hills, trees, and fields while both of characters are continuing to drink heavily. There is a lot of symbolism which includes that every day people make decisions that can affect …show more content…
This is able to give some insight to those who struggle with understanding this short story. The author was trying to show how it was an act of rebellion that gives a character realistic of how Americans want or believe they should be perceived by the reader. While both man and woman are able to engage in their desires, neither of them are able to get what they are wanting from each other. While reading the text, the story shows how a reader can pick up on the different behaviors and formations that can be formed from each gender and be able to identify the rejection from the American man. Jig is really struggling with how culturally she couldn't have been able to say no because of the gender roles from simply submitting to the man's desire for an abortion. During WWI years when women did not have the right to defend themselves because they were extremely oppressed by men, women had to become dependent on men as their guardians this was very necessary. In this short story, it shows how a woman is very vulnerable to a man. The only way if this relationship will only continue is that Jig would have to stay dependent and submissive towards the American
Although, the relationship between them is not clear; but one can assume they are not married. One can also assume their relationship was intimate; resulting in Jig becoming pregnant. It is also made to appear that the couple are travelers who stop in different cities before moving on to the next. The reader s is made to believe the relationship that is being played by Jig and the American as being shallow. The American apparently wants this abortion because he wants to keep his current lifestyle.
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.
(Marrs 1). Most short stories use its setting as the groundwork for its characters, their development, its plot, conflict, and dialogue. However, in the short story “Hills Like Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway it is uniquely different. Hemingway presents a profoundly vague dialogue between two characters of whom we know very little about. The ambiguous exchange between these two seems immaterial; however, it does gives the reader
Subtlety can either create an amazing story or it can ruin a perfectly fine story. If you are subtle about something it may show that you are uneducated in the category or that you are uninterested in it, and especially in writing it may show that you simply do not know anything about the topic. There can also be a great factor in writing with subtlety because if you use it correctly you can keep your reader wondering what is going to happen next and you can allow him to live out many scenarios to the story in their head. Omission of a conclusion or important details may also lead to the same effects that subtlety does. If you completely omit some details from the text, you may lose your reader but if you omit the correct ones you will have
Instead of saying the word abortion both the man and Jig call it an operation, “I really an awfully simple operation, Jig…it’s not really an operation at all” (Hemingway 116). The way the man is downplaying the abortion and how “it’s just to let the air in” (Hemingway 116), showcases how he thinks this is nothing. He is not putting himself in Jigs place. Readers are provided with insight into the characters thoughts and feelings since it is written in third-person omniscient. The writing style provides readers further understanding on these characters feel since both have a different opinion when it comes to the idea of Jig having an abortion.
There are two considerably prominent literary elements in “Hills Like White Elephants”, conflict and symbolism. The latter (and more dominant) of the two is made clear right in the title, the White Elephants. The term “white elephant” is used to describe something troublesome, difficult or unwanted. Throughout the story, the two main characters are clearly having a disagreement over something that one of them would be alright with keeping, but the other would like to dispose of. In presenting their arguments, each of them reference the “white elephant” multiple times, but can’t seem to agree on whether or not the issue they disagree upon is, in fact, a “white elephant”.
They both lack communication with one another and are not seeing eye to eye. We see Jig resistance grow more as she begins to powerfully assert her decision to not have the abortion. Despite the American Man not wanting the baby he tells her not to have the procedure if it isn’t something she wants. This shows that the man does care for to girl, but he still lacks an understanding for just how hard this decision is for her to make. In the story the man emphasizes just how much he cares for the girl, but he doesn’t express understanding and sympathy for her during such a stressful decision (Renner).
People face difficult decisions every day. Some, however, face more difficult decisions than others. In the short story Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism, dialogue, and the iceberg theory to highlight a conflict between the American guy and the girl facing a strenuous decision. Symbolism plays a prominent roll in Hills Like White Elephants.
Throughout the story jig is constantly debating whether or not she is going to have an abortion. In her mind she knows that she is most likely going to get an abortion because of her boyfriend the American. She does not show her feelings externally. She shows opposition to her boyfriend to hide her true feelings. Abortion is meant to “keep women from seeking timely treatment.
”(paragraph 22, line 1). He wants to win this argument and have them going on being a carefree couple traveling, after the operation is performed. Jig is apprehensive to have the abortion because she possibly wants the child, but she also fears at what may happen after she has the operation. She does not know if things will really be the same. The man is using logic and lack of emotion to be able to convince Jig that the abortion is the right move for her to make.
A prime example of a short story with a deeper significance is Hills Like White Elephants. Ernest Hemingway - the author - is able to create this deeper significance through the use of such features as: symbolism, characterisation and setting. Set at a Spanish train station, Jig and the man - out two main characters - bicker and drink. Although it is never said, the deeper significance of the story is that Jig is pregnant. They spend most of their time arguing over whether Jig should end her pregnancy.
In literature realism is described as life as it is, the common everyday life. Realism was romanticized by W.D Howells who was a creative writer and a literacy critic who promoted writers such as Charles Chestnut, Mark Twain, and Paul Laurence Dunbar along with many others. Realism was expressed to the readers by romanticizing what is real in literature, writers accomplished this by emphasizing the idea, transient in nature, upper class chara, and speaking in Standard English. A great piece of literature that captures the movement of Realism was written by Sarah Orne Jewett “A White Heron.” This story represents two pieces of literature Romanticism and Realism.
Hills Like White Elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a story that takes place in Spain while a man and woman wait for a train. The story is set up as a dialogue between the two, in which the man is trying to convince the woman to do something she is hesitant in doing. Through out the story, Hemingway uses metaphors to express the characters’ opinions and feelings.
---, "Hills Like White Elephants." The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner?s Sons, 1953. 273-278.
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.