Trouble with Women in Hills Like White Elephants
The short story, "Hills Like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway, has a lot to do with how the author lived. The time period the story mostly relates to is when he was married to Hadley and having an affair with Pauline. The story shows problems within a relationship and a lack of communication between a couple.
While Hemingway was writing this story, he wrote a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald about Pauline. He wrote about sitting in the shade and talking with her while waiting at a station. In the story, "The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building" (Hemingway 731). The girl comments on the hills in the background, how they like white elephants. Her boyfriend just ignores her and every time she talks about the hills, he changes the subject. According to James Mellow, "Another oddity is that in the earliest manuscript fragment relating to the story, written in 1925, is that Hemingway who remarks to Hadley, ‘look at those god-damn white mountains,’ and she answers, ‘They are the most mysterious things I have ever seen’" (348). This shows how Hemingway came up with the idea of the white elephants.
Another part of the story that relates to his life is the setting. While Hemingway was in Spain, the setting of the story, he found out that Hadley was pregnant for the second time. The story might have shown his true feelings about the pregnancy. In the story, the boyfriend is moody and wants the girl to do what he wants. This could be the same way Hemingway felt towards Hadley towards the end of their marriage. Also, on the manuscript of the story, he wrote a note about Pauline. This shows that he cared about her while writing the story.
Another relationship between the two is the way Hemingway dealt with women. He was married four times, and one can assume that he had his share of trouble in finding the right woman. The man in the story has trouble communicating with his girlfriend, which creates a problem in their relationship. Basically, he wants her to do what he wants and won’t have it any other way. As Mellow puts it, "It is a classic, understated Hemingway story of failure of communication between the sexes" (348).
The main characters’ conflict over not wanting the same things in life is the root of the women’s disillusionment. The theme is furthered by the complication of the antagonist manipulation of the Jig’s feelings for him. Similar to Cisneros’s written work, Hemingway uses the narrative point of view to illuminate the growing disillusionment the women feels about not being able to have everything if she terminates the pregnancy. Hemingway leads the audience to this conclusion when the protagonist states “no, we can’t it isn’t ours anymore… Once they take it away, you never get it back” when referring to her disappointment that the antagonist will not change his mind and they can no longer have everything they ever wanted
Gilmartin, K. M. Emotional survival for law enforcement, a guide for officers and their families. 1st ed. Arizona: E-S Press, 2002.
Imagine being a police officer doing your daily routine job. You are in a patrol car on the highway, watching the cars and trucks drive by. You are also looking for speeders to warn them to be more careful and maybe you’ll ticket them. It has been a very boring day for you, since you have only been called on your radio once, and it was for an accident (fender bender). Almost at the end of your shift, a blue car drives by going ninety miles an hour, but you know the speed limit is only fifty-five miles an hour. You pull the patrol car out of the gravel area that you had been sitting in and you start to follow the car. You put your lights on and catch up to them. After a few minutes you pull the person over. You get out of the car and start walking over towards the blue car. You are right about to talk to the driver and he drives off, leaving nothing but dust in your face. Now, the adrenaline is pumping in your body, but what should you do? You could call for backup or follow the blue car. Anything could happen. How far should you actually go? This is the question that will be answered in this paper. I will explain what police pursuit is and some different things officers do during a pursuit. I will also give some statistics about the fatalities that have happened in a police pursuit. I will also illustrate my opinion about how far police pursuits should go.
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Hemingway has created a situation where she is forced to depend on him because she is a young, immature, girl in an adult situation. It is when the American tells jig that “we will be fine afterward. Just like we were before, it is the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” that she realizes nothing will ever be the same no matter what he says. During one discussion she says “we could have everything” the man agrees, then she says “no we can’t it isn’t ours anymore and once they take it away, you can never get it back.” He says “But they haven’t taken it away” and her response is “we’ll wait and see.” The American doesn’t realize that at this point she has discovered that if he cannot love her and be happy while she is pregnant how he will ever truly love her as much as she loves him. According to Robert Barron many critics believe that the couple’s relationship has a bleak and ultimately poor ending (Barron). The older waiter in “A clean, Well-Lighted Place” is dealing with a similar situation when a wealthy old man who is a regular at the café he works at comes in after a failed suicide
In an interview with the American Academy of Achievement, Jonas Salk stated “Risks, I like to say, always pay off. You learn what to do, or what not to do.” As a man of science, Salk truly believes and lives these words every day. In his career he has surely taken many risks, chasing down new theories and ideas, only to lead to a dead end road. But one day, he stumbled upon an idea, and took a risk that left an impact on humanity forever. Not only has Jonas Salk left his stamp on the medical world with the development of the Polio vaccine, but his team continues to conduct groundbreaking research on some of today’s most deadly diseases.
Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. 6th ed. New York: Longman, 2003. As Rpt. in Rankin, Paul "Hemingway's `Hills Like White Elephants'." Explicator, 63 (4) (Summer 2005): 234-37.
The idea of knowing police tactics are also needed when in pursuit. A police pursuit is a chase between an officer and a suspect who has thought to have committed a crime. This can be very dangerous depending on the amount of civilians in the local area of the high speed chase. Without ...
Before writing Hills like White Elephants Hemingway had been married to his first wife Hadley Richardson. In 1921, the couple moved to Paris were two years later Hemingway began to make a name for himself as a writer. Just as this was happening, Hadley became pregnant with their first son Bumby. This forced the couple to move back to the United States due to the medical advancements in the country. Doing so meant putting Hemingway’s new career on hold for three years. In 1924, the couple returned to Paris, where Ernest Hemingway met a woman named Pauline Pfeiffer. At first, Pauline thought very low of Hemmingway, but that quickly changed. She and Hemmingway developed a close friendly relationship, which grew to a closer relationship then Hemmingway had with his wife Hadley. Spending so much time together eventually lead the two into falling in love and having an affair. Hadley, Hemingway’s wife, found out about the affair and Hemingway in response asked for a ...
Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" touches on an issue as ageless as time: communication problems in a relationship. He tells his story through conversations between the two main characters, the American and the girl. Conflict is created through dialogue as these characters face what most readers believe to be the obstacle of an unexpected pregnancy. Their plight is further complicated by their inability to convey their differing opinions to each other. Symbolism and the title's meaning are other effective means of communicating conflict.
Everyday law enforcement personal have the possibility to face dangerous events in their daily duties. In performing such duties a police officer could come by a seemingly ordinary task, and in a blink of an eye the event can turn threatening and possible deadly. When or if this happens to an officer they won’t have
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.
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