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Abortion In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

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The short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, is about a young couple and the polemic (controversial) issue of abortion. Though the word “abortion” is nowhere in the story, it is doubtlessly understood through Hemingway’s powerful use of two literary elements: setting and symbolism. From the first paragraph the setting immediately introduces the tense atmosphere that will surround the rest of the story. The story takes place in Spain in the late 1920’s. The setting is described as follows: The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side, there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. […] The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would …show more content…

The openness and loneliness around the railroad station imply that there is no way to back out of the problem at hand and that the man and the girl must address it now. The heat turns the scene into a virtual teakettle, boiling and screaming under pressure. The landscape that encompasses the station plays a fundamental role in the conflict of the story through its extensive symbolism. When the girl sees the long and white hills she says that “they look like white elephants.” As she observes the white hills she foresees elatedly the birth of her baby – something unique like the uncommon white elephant. The color white symbolizes the innocence and purity of her unborn child. She also admires the rest of the scenery: The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were the fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the

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Hills Like White Elephants #1 Describe the setting and discuss its importance to the story. •Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is set in a train station to highlight the fact that the relationship between the American and the girl is at a crossroads. Planted in the middle of a valley, the station isn’t the final destination, but merely a stopping point between Barcelona and Madrid. Night

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In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, there is a relationship unfolding, a complex relationship difficult to understand. The relationship is revealed by a conversation between a man and a woman, a topic of conversation that people rarely discussed in the period that the story was set. After researching interpretations, it is consistently said “She is pregnant, and he wants her to have an abortion” (Weeks 76), to which I agree that this conversation is about abortion. With the man seemingly pushing the topic and the girl hesitant and questionable, it is unsure as to the result of their conversation. However, it is my belief that she chose to follow her heart and not get the abortion.

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Literature and the arts are similar, they require us to tap into a deeper level of understand in what we read and see. The words are often an author’s experiences, thoughts, feeling, ideas or convictions. As readers we can sometimes connect with the author, having an emotional reaction to their works. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, the young couple is making a life decision about going through an abortion. I too was faced this decision in my own life at a young age.

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When first reading “Hills Like White Elephants,” the miscommunication and unintentional manipulation between characters, (an American man and a young woman who we can assume to be in a brief relationship with each other), may not be initially clear to the reader. The reader may first find the American man in the story to be harsh, controlling, and manipulative. However, after a closer second read one comes to realize that these assumptions about his character have come from simple miscommunication between characters. Hemingway refers to the female in the story specifically as a girl, not a woman, so we can infer that there is an age difference between the two characters which is also a contributing factor. As well, it becomes clear that the

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Throughout the short story (1), “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway is speaking about a seemingly unwanted pregnancy and a woman’s uneasiness with going through an abortion. However, Hemingway never explicitly says in this work of fiction (2) that it is about abortion or that the woman, Jig, is uncomfortable with it, but uses symbolism (3) to present this to the audience. At the time “Hills like White Elephants” was published, in 1927, abortion was illegal in most places and a very taboo subject that wasn’t to be openly discussed in public. Thus, Hemingway relied greatly upon the use of symbolism to get his message across for this reason as well as the third person narrator (4) that did not give insight into the character’s thoughts within this piece of literature (5) . He uses symbols such as the train station, white hills, the baggage, and the drinks to point towards the underlying internal conflict (6) of Jig’s decision that is being heavily influenced by the American man, who wants Jig to get the abortion.

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White Elephants are symbolic for the child. The woman is conflicted, because this operation is taking away her unborn child—an apparent internal conflict. She asks the man numerous times, “"And if I do it you 'll be happy and things will be like they were and you 'll love me?" (Hemingway 3) The man is constantly reassuring his love and desire to be with her, but only her. When he speaks to the woman his manipulation of wording portrays the he’s concerned for her, but in reality he is pushing on his hidden agenda—having her go through with the operation.

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In the story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, Jig turns to religion when making a life changing decision. Jig, a women, and an American man are at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid. The women compares the hills nearby to white elephants, a symbol of overcoming obstacles and connected to fertility and knowledge. In document d, Jig is believed to be making a decision on whether to have an abortion or not.

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In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the hills and white elephants represent the two options that the couple is considering: the hills representing the possibility of a new beginning, while the white elephants symbolize a burden or unwanted presence. The hills are described as “long and white,” resembling elephants, and are said to “look like white elephants,” which is a phrase commonly used to describe something that is unwanted or difficult to deal with. The man tries to persuade the woman to have an abortion by convincing her that it is the best option for their future, woman is the woman is hesitant and unsure the use of the hills and the white elephants as symbolism highlights the difficult decision that the couple is faced with and the weight that each option

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The dialogue in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” reveals a man’s and a woman’s incongruent conflict on abortion, and the author’s fundamentally feminist position is visible in the portrayal of the woman’s independent choice of whether or not to keep the baby she is carrying. The plot is very simple in the story which is less than 1500 words long. A woman and a man spend less than an hour on a hot summers day at a Spanish train station in the valley of Ebro as they are waiting for a train heading for Madrid. Their dialogue takes up most of the space and only few major actions take place.

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“Hills Like White Elephants” is the short fiction story published in the 1927 collection “Men Without Women” of Ernest Hemingway. He is a famous American author. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, considered one of the great innovators in twentieth century about fiction. Hemingway did very well in using metaphors in his work. This short story contains many characteristic symbols.

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There is much more to a piece of literature than simply the characters and the plot, the setting a fundamental aspect of a story, especially in fiction this short without much dialogue. In Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway uses the setting not only to give the readers a sense of time and place but also to allow them inside the characters’ lives and creates the world inside the story in which every action, every answer and every hill has a meaning. Fiction often tends to be rooted in a sense of place and the integral setting in Hills Like White Elephants allow the readers to get an in depth glimpse inside the characters’ heads, their thoughts and attitude towards the plot. It has influenced the characters’ actions and responses,

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1291 Words | 6 Pages

“On [one] side there was no shade and no trees” this side of the train station represents what life would be like if she would not have the baby. Her life would be like “the dry side of the valley” (Hemingway 923, 926). “On the other side [of the valley] were fields of grain and trees along the banks of Ebro. Far away, beyond the

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Introduction What if all the expressions in the world are either straightforward or the indicative mood? I am not sure what will happen, but straight and clear expressions wouldn’t be good all the time. In literary works, a metaphor, which is an imaginative way of describing something by referring to something else which is the same in a particular way, is likely to let readers know the pleasure of reading literatures. In my case, I am very honest, so not only lying, but I am also not good at implying something that I want to express in an effective way. For that reason, I would like to introduce a short story “Hill like white elephants” written by Ernest Hemingway who is one of famous American writers.

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During the course of the story “Hills Like White Elephants” the author Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism to describe the the main idea of the girl having the “operation.” Hemingway uses the landscape, the white elephant, and the term “elephant in the room” to represent different aspects of the pregnancy and abortion. The landscape in the story represents choosing the abortion or choosing to keep the baby. The setting of the story is at a train station.

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In his story “Hills Like White Elephants”, Ernest Hemingway points out the couple's inability to make the decision: whether to abort the unborn child or not. The reader finds that the story deals with couple's miscommunication through the conversation and the emotions that they express. One can observe that no descriptions are given to the characters, thus, Hemingway creates universal dilemma to focus on the crucial issue. In this way, Hemingway leads the reader to identify with his female character that undergoes a struggle.

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