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Abortion In Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway

763 Words4 Pages

Ernest Hemingways' short story "Hills Like White Elephants" portrays a young couple's struggle facing the choice of abortion. A young girl by the name of Jig is pregnant, and the story is a discussion between the couple about whether she should get an abortion or keep the baby. The couple is waiting for a train while enjoying drinks. Jig admires Ebro's long hills, comparing them to white elephants. The man pushes for her to get an abortion saying the procedure is safe and natural to persuade her. The couple goes back and forth, discussing their opinions, where it becomes apparent there is a fracture in their decision. The man continues to feed Jig drinks, intensifying his efforts to change her mind. She rebels against him, demanding he stops …show more content…

The couple uses alcohol to detour their problems, beginning with drinking light beer as the conversation is delicate. The only pause between the subject of conversation is to get more drinks, which is a temporary relief from the crisis. However, as the couple becomes divided and the discussion intensifies, Jig says, "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe." a liquor that was so strong it was illegal in America at this time. The use of more potent alcohol throughout the story is the man purposefully attempting to intoxicate Jig to make her less aware and clear-headed so that she will agree to an abortion. Hemingway uses alcohol to show the couple's attempt to escape their reality as a reaction to deciding whether to have an …show more content…

The physical symbolism of the material making up the curtain is that the string of beads can be the circle of birth, life, and death or the unfulfillment of the girl if she does not have the child. The circle represents a void or missing part a woman feels without a family. In addition, Jig can be Catholic as she tries to escape from reality by praying to the belid mother for the soul of her and her child as she holds two curtain beads as a rosary. The first mention of the curtain symbolizes the division of the couple's views as "the man said into the curtain," showing separation that the couple feels as if they are talking to a wall. Later in the story, they are behind the curtain in an attempt to escape the other side. The people outside the curtain represent society as they hide from the judgment and controversy that having a baby out of wedlock or an abortion brings. By displaying the couple's physical boundaries with the curtain, Hemingway shows their attempts to separate themselves to escape the reality they

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Examples Of Ambiguity In Hills Like White Elephant By Ernest Hemingway

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Ernest Hemingway uses repetition and ambiguity in his story, “Hills like White Elephants'' to exhibit the idea that in order to maintain a healthy long-term relationship, communication and consideration of one another’s values are needed. Throughout this story, a couple, Jig and the American, are having an intense and emotional conversation about whether Jig should have an abortion. She displays very sensitive feelings about the procedure, and the American takes advantage of this by trying to manipulate her, repeatedly stating it is her choice: “if [she doesn’t] want to [she doesn’t] have to. [He] wouldn’t have [her] do it if [she] didn’t want to” (477). By doing this he falsely implies he has no opinion, but later contradicts himself by

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Hemingway sets the story environment at a train station, with two very different sides of the tracks. This setting is interpreted as a metaphor for the choice at hand, an interpretation of life or death. One side reflecting a dry harsh area, with no trees, and devoid of life, on the other side of the

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Good People And Hills Like White Elephants: A Comparative Analysis

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Lane Jr. who's struggling with his faith will support and stand by Sheri and her decision concerning the pregnancy. Ernest Hemingway's" Hills Like White Elephants” allows his readers to come to the conclusion as to whether the couple in question will terminate or keep the unborn child. As Jig, and the American are

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The man she is with keeps pushing her to make a life-changing decision about an abortion and she says, “I realize… Can’t we maybe stop talking?,” (Hemingway 3). Including this issue specifically is bold for Hemingway as it is controversial, yet he crafts it to bring even more attention to the Girl’s rights and intentionally characterizes her with this strong will and independence. She later threatens to scream, demonstrating that the Girl is unafraid to bring attention to this altercation. Hemingway provides the Girl with a voice that many women did not have. The man craves authority and manipulates her by saying, “I think [getting the abortion is] the best thing to do.

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1442 Words | 6 Pages

In Hemingway’s story, the relation between the couple is fragile ending in an abortion, as Wallace’s couple seem to have a negative perspective over abortion. With similar issues revolving abortion, the intuitive message challenges love and morals. Although Wallace’s story builds upon

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Hills Like White Elephants Literary Analysis

1554 Words | 7 Pages

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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786 Words | 4 Pages

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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The conflict between the two characters is the issue of abortion and whether or not the girl will go through it. Hemingway does not tell us that the girl is pregnant but hints it throughout the story referring to “the operation” as having an abortion. From the start, you can take

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However, the woman is clearly conflicted, expressing her thoughts about the procedure and her worries about what is the right choice to do in her situation. Despite this, the man continues to pressure her, and the story ends with the couple waiting for the train in

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The Dialogue In Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1629 Words | 7 Pages

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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Abortion In Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway

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Hills like white elephants by Ernest Hemingway is a short story that indirectly talks about abortion. In the story, an American man and his girlfriend jig are waiting for a train while talking about their unwanted pregnancy and what they are going to do about. While she is unsure of what she wants, he is very adamant and being very pushy about getting an abortion. This shows that because of their opposing views and potential outcomes, the theme of the story is due to the unwanted pregnancy, nothing will ever be the same between the couple.

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Hills Like White Elephant is a short story by Earnest Hemingway from 1927. The story is talking about a failing relationship between an American man and his girlfriend. This couple is at a critical point on their lives. At the bar in a train station in Spain, the girl, Jig, does not want to end up her pregnancy, but she is going to sacrifice the baby to satisfied him. Because he is critical of the exploitation of his girl’s feelings concerning the continuation of unbalanced relationship.

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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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