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Ernest Hemingway Hills Like White Elephant Feminist Analysis

1010 Words5 Pages

Hear my train coming

For centuries, men have swayed the scepter while their wives were compelled to face the consequences with a silenced voice. Even on this very day, though much improved since then, men and women are not equally treated. That silenced voice has now made way for a blaring roar for equality from several fronts as from the feminists, LGBT(Lesbian,Gay,Bisexual Transgender) organisations and many other minorities. Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ also touches this topic touched, though not everyone agrees. Ernest Hemingway, a well-known modernist writer, adopts the iceberg principle, a typical feature of modernist literature in his works. According to this principle, the top represents the given story, while the foot depicts the concealed story. This principle restricts the writer’s dictatorship, the reader however has to pay a price. The writer only provides, mostly vague, information, it is now up to the reader to …show more content…

The story is about a couple, an American, whose name is unknown, and a Spanish girl, who is referred to as Jig. The two are spending their time in a small establishment in Ebro, a small village which can be found in Spain, while waiting for the next train to Madrid. Their conversation on the first two pages is rather ordinary, however it does take more serious approach on the third page with the American saying “ It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”(253). For the following two pages the discussion dedicates itself to this topic. It is important to note that the operation is never explained, though many critics acknowledge that this represents an abortion. The reader has to be concentrated at all times in order not to miss any vital information. As Mathew J. Bolton states:” inexperienced or inattentive readers might miss the unnamed subject of the couple’s conversation-abortion-entirely” (Bolton

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Hills Like White Elephants Rhetorical Analysis

739 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout their conversation, you can decipher a tone where the conversation sheds light on his feelings towards the procedure and her feelings. He says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig. It’s not really an operation at all” (Hemingway 124), in an effort to persuade her to in fact have the abortion. She, on the other hand, seems silent at first, but then questions how their life will be better after this procedure. Her uncertainty shows in her responses, and in other findings “… the sensuous beauty of a love relation that is quickly deteriorating, now that she has become conscious of her lover’s selfishness” (Maynard 273).

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In the articles, “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Wonders of the Invisible World - Trial of Martha Carrier" by Cotton Mather, and "Model of Christian Charity” by John Winthrop, each author expresses the importance of unity and uses different methods. In the novel, Hester stands in front of a crowd determined to accuse her and force the scarlet letter, or fabric in the shape of an “A,” signifying “adulterer” on her. Previously, Hester married an older man, Chillingworth, who temporarily sent her to America. Meanwhile, she enters an affair with the Puritan minister Dimmesdale and births their child, Pearl. Hester lives with Chillingworth who eventually dies before Dimmesdale, causing her to disappear and return peacefully alone.

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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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Relationships In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

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Relationships are the core of everything we do in life. We love someone, so we do something for them; we value someone 's opinion, so we respect them; we dislike someone, so we avoid them. Relationships cause people to act on their emotions which impact how and why they do the things they do. Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” is about a couple trying to come to a conclusion on a delicate matter. While the man strongly promotes his opinion the girl is hesitant but wants to do whatever will make him happy.

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It also highlights the importance that is placed on her to fulfill her duty and that is why abortion is not an option in Gilead. As for Jig, she is lenient towards the idea of going through with the abortion because she has that choice offered by the American man. This can be seen when she says, “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” (Hemingway 231). This following quote serves as evidence that Jig has agency in making the decision to abort the baby or not.

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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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One main theme in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is the idea of disconnection. In this story, we eavesdrop on a conversation held between both characters. In their dialogue, conflict is created as the characters face what most readers believe to be the obstacle of unexpected pregnancy. This is assumed through symbolism and the titles meaning. The term “white elephant” was used for an unwanted gift.

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Which is making him more selfish and he does not to have any responsibilities. Also, the reader is also left with a great doubt, as there is no solution. Jig is a Spanish pregnant girl, and she is about to have an abortion. She seems young because she is depending on a careless man.

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2016 Words | 9 Pages

If taken literally, Hemingway’s story is one in which very little happens. The story takes place in a train station in Spain where a couple argue about a vague event over drinks. From the very start of the short story, there is an overbearing uneasiness felt in the text as the unnamed male and the girl, Jig, hold what seems to be—on the surface—an innocent conversation. By using a limiting third person point of view that consists mostly of dialogue, Hemingway creates an obstacle in the way of understanding as there is no clear insight to what is going on inside of either party’s head. The conflict that the pair seem to be discussing is never named and it becomes the metaphorical elephant in the room much like the white elephants that Jig sees in the mountains.

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Theme Of Disillusionment In Ernest Hemingway

987 Words | 4 Pages

Ernest Hemingway’s characters are frequently tested in their faith, beliefs, and ideas. To Hemingway’s characters, things that appear to be grounded in reality and unmovable facts frequently are not, revealing themselves to be hollow, personal mythologies. Hemingway shakes his characters out of their comfortable ignorance through traumatic events that usually cause a certain sense of disillusionment with characters mythologies, moving them to change their way of life. His characters usually, after becoming disillusioned, respond with depression, suicide, and nihilism. However, this is not always the case.

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Relationships In Hills Like White Elephants, By Ernest Hemingway

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Neglecting to acknowledge something one finds unwanted in a relationship, can cause previous issues to remain unsolved, thus linger underneath the surface like an iceberg in the ocean, as it is shown in “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. With the lack of descriptions in general, the description of the train station and the hills that are seen from there catches the attention of the reader. This creates the question; what importance can there be found in the metaphor white elephants and the setting? The first conversation between the American and the woman is when the woman gives an off-hand remark on some hills nearby.

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Hills Like White Elephant Ending Analysis

521 Words | 3 Pages

The man believed “ It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” and that “I think it is the best thing to do” but the woman was just worried that the husband will still love her after the operation, if she would do it. After the two were disgusting this while drinking, the women was starting to have enough of the conversation it seemed and kept the man to stop talking. She wanted to the keep the baby while the person she was going to have the baby with didn’t want the same thing. During the whole conversation between the two of them, they never used the word abortion; they never wanted the people around them to understand what they were disgusting. The readers had to come to their own conclusion to the end of the story because it ended with the woman explaining that she felt fine

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1044 Words | 5 Pages

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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837 Words | 4 Pages

In nearly all historical societies, sexism was prevalent. Power struggles between genders mostly ended in men being the dominant force in society, leaving women on a lower rung of the social ladder. However, this does not always mean that women have a harder existence in society. Scott Russell Sanders faces a moral dilemma in “The Men We Carry in Our Minds.” In the beginning, Sanders feels that women have a harder time in society today than men do.

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Hemingway accomplishes that outcome by making use of his iceberg theory - the ability to omit as much as possible from the context and interpretation of the story, leaving the reader to intuit its entire meaning.

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