Analysis of Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

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Analysis of Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

"Hills Like White Elephants," is a short story,. It is a story about a man and a woman waiting at a train station talking about an issue that they never name. I believe this issue is abortion. In this paper I will prove that the girl in the story, who's name is Jig, finally decides to go ahead and have the baby even though the man, who does not have a name, wants her to have an abortion. It is the end of the story that makes me think this.

First of all I will prove that it is an abortion that this couple is discussing. The man says that it is an "operation," and an abortion is an operation. Also, he says that it is "just to let the air in," which can be interpreted as meaning that the doctors who are performing the abortion will let the air into the uterus as they remove the fetus. The man says that he has "known lots of people that have done it." Which suggests that this is a common operation like an abortion. It also shows the moral depravity of the world of these people because so many women are having abortions. Finally, the man says that he wants their relationship to be "just like we were before". This suggests that the relationship has changed, as it would with a baby, if the girl has an abortion things will return to the same as before the pregnancy. We don't know what the couple acted like before the pregnancy, however, we are certainly not meant to like their behavior as they talk about the abortion.

Now that I have established that the couple is having an abortion, I will establish the girl's behavior because this is important for figuring out the way in which she has made up her mind at the end of the story. Early in the story we get a glimpse at J...

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... at this point in the story is the result of being left alone for a few minutes so that she could decide what she want to do on her own. Her final comment that "There's nothing wrong with me" lets us know that she no longer sees the pregnancy as something "wrong". She has accepted her pregnancy and plans to keep the baby.

In conclusion, Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" is about a man and a woman struggling to deal with an unwanted baby. The author, never explicitly tells us what the girl decides to do about the baby, but he does give us enough clues to figure out what she has decided by the end of the story. These clues have to do with the story's tone like the way that the things that the guy says make us understand Jig's tone of disapproval. Overall this story is like an iceberg with most of the substance hiding beneath the surface.

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