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Critical analysis about hills like white elephants
Hills like white elephants analysis paper
Hills Like White Elephants Analysis
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Throughout our lives we are faced with many decisions and situations that can ultimately alter the destiny of our life. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” a young traveling couple is faced with just that a life altering decision. From the irony of the title to the symbolism of different events and objects, the story is perceived differently among the readers. Once the audience realizes that Jig is pregnant and the couple is talking about a possible abortion, this answers a lot of hindering questions left in the readers’ mind, and, in my opinion, the view of the whole story takes a turn for the worse. Another important idea to grasp is the symbolism of the setting of the story; the couple is speaking at a train station in Spain while surrounded with suitcases with labels on them. All these details of the story help the reader decipher how and what the difficulty between the girl and the American man truly is. As we dig down deeper, and read other sources speaking about the same topic, we see that many other people agree with me on the symbolism and many do not agree with me on the symbolism.
The irony of the title is beyond belief. Many people have been a part of white elephant gift exchanges, especially around Christmas time. This is a game where people buy a usually nice, but burdensome gift. This gift is random to some and cannot be easily disposed of. Wise GEEK defines a white elephant gift as a “present that is something unusual, somewhat useless, or inconvenient” (par. 2). As we read this selection the truth that the possible pregnancy in certainly inconvenient. Knowing the definition of a White Elephant gift exchange changes the whole perspective of the story. In paragraph 58, the young lady expresses burdensome speech while...
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... realize, through the irony of the title, how this couple approaches the situation, and how they interacted with each other about the situation, and we can only hope that their different opinions merge to a compromise.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Earnest. "Hills Like White Elephants." Compact Literature. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 8thth ed. Boston: Wadsworth, n.d. 129-33. Print.
Lanier, Doris. "The Bittersweet Taste." Ebsco MasterFile Premier. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
Rankin, Paul. "Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants." Ebsco MasterFile Premier. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
Renner, Stanley. "Moving To The Girl's Side Of "Hills Like White Elephants.." Hemingway Review 15.1 (1995): 27-41. Literary Reference Center. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
"What is a White Elephant Gift Exchange." Wise Geek. Now You Know, 3 Mar. 2006. Web. 27 Apr. 2014
The 89-103. Literature Resource Center -. Gale. Renner, Stanley. A. Moving to the girl's side of 'Hills Like White Elephants.'.
There is a common theme in “Hill’s like White Elephants” and “The Birthmark” of a life altering decision. Both women are thinking about having an operation that will affect them for the rest of their lives. In “Hill’s like White Elephants”, Jig and the American are debating whether or not they should have an abortion. This decision is something that will affect both of them deeply throughout their lives together. By the way the two characters interact with each other the reader can deduce how important they feel the operation is. There seems to be a tension in their sentences with each other. Jig says things like “Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for” and “That's all we do, isn't it-look at things and try new drinks” (Hemingway 841)? These responses to the American show that Jig is in a distasteful state of mind which would most likely stem from her thoughts about the operation and what they will do in regard to it. Because these thoughts of the operation are affecting her socially, it shows just how important the operation is to her. How Jig interprets the scenery around them while they are discussing the operation also suggests the importance ...
Rankin, Paul. Hemmingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Explicator. 63.4 (Summer 2005): 234-237. Rpt. In Short Story Critisism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale, 234-237. Literature Resources from Gale. Gale. . 12 Jan. 2015.
In conclusion, the short story ‘Hills like White Elephants’ contains symbolism to a high degree. The most important of all symbolism is perhaps the "white elephant". As we all know, a white elephant is a gift that nobody wants. To correlate this to the story, the white elephant is the baby who wants to abort template hesitant.
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.
Ernest Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants” is written in third person. This narrator is objective and limited. It is objective, by not giving thoughts or opinions about the story. The narrator is limited by having no insight to thoughts of the other characters in the story and has
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.
---, "Hills Like White Elephants." The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner?s Sons, 1953. 273-278.
The art, literature, and poetry of the early 20th century called for a disruption of social values. Modernism became the vague term to describe the shift. The characteristics of the term Modernism, all seek to free the restricted human spirit. It had no trust in the moral conventions and codes of the past. One of the examples of modernism, that breaks the conventions and traditions of literature prior to Modernism, is Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants”. The short story uses plot, symbolism, setting, dialogue, and a new style of writing to allow human spirit to experiment with meaning and interpretation.
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.
Stukas, Jake. "Literary analysis: Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway." Helium.com. Web. 21 Nov. 2009. .
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. Eds. Perrine, Laurence, and Thomas R. Arp. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993. 171-174.
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” Literature Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. DiYanni, Robert. 2nd ed. New York. Mc Grew Hill. 2008. 400-03. Print.
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.
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. Eds. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 113-117. Print.