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Ernest Hemingway Hills Like White Elephant Feminist Analysis

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Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills like White Elephants” published in 1972 is about a woman and a man discussing the difficult decision of having an abortion. The site of the story is at a railroad stop in Northern Spain. Hemingway uses symbolism from the setting of the story. In the story the beads, Jig’s name, and the baggage that Jig and the American carry all have meanings behind them. He also uses the sides of the railroad to show the different sides of life and death. In the story Hemingway uses the two sides of the railroad to represent how life would be if the couple choses abortion or if they didn’t. He also uses the railroad to show the two different sides of the couple. The “trees, fields, river, and grain” on one side of the tracks represents the choice of life, keeping the baby. This side shows a sign of life and what it would be like if they chose to keep the baby. This is the side that Jig favors, she wants to keep the baby but she is in fear that if she keeps the baby she will lose her significant other. On the other side of the tracks is the …show more content…

He wants her to have an abortion. Everything he says about the abortion is to make her feel comfortable with having one. In the story he says, “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time.” He is saying this to show her that he will be there with her through the procedure so that she won’t feel alone. Throughout the story as Jig questions the abortion situation he tries to flip it on her to make her feel bad about the situation. He tells her that “I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do.” Even though he already knows that her mind is set on keeping the baby, he says things like that to make her feel bad. He wants her to have the procedure and he knows that she is willing to do anything to keep him from leaving and keep him

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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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Hills Like White Elephants Jig Character Analysis

225 Words | 1 Pages

She keeps her true ideas on abortion hidden well when talking to her boyfriend. An example of this is when she tells her boyfriend that the land surrounding them is so pretty and fertile. By saying that she is implying

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Abortion In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

721 Words | 3 Pages

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:

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Review Of Bill Cosby's Views On African American Vernacular English

325 Words | 2 Pages

Bill Cosby believes that it is crucial to learn the proper English language. He does not believe that African-Americans have fought this hard to get an education, for the younger generation to not take full advantage of leaning to speak English properly. I do not agree with Cosby because I do not believe that there is anything wrong with younger people communicating in African American Vernacular English. Although this is true, I can argue that Cosby is correct to a certain extent, because African Americans have fought to be educated while it seems that youngsters give up much easier on learning. I do not think that Smitherman would agree with Bill Cosby.

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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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Hills Like White Elephants Gender Roles Essay

696 Words | 3 Pages

Oday Alyatim Gender Studies Prof Qualls Hills Like White Elephants In the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, the characters Jig and the man are out on vacation traveling from Barcelona to Madrid through train. While at the train station, they experience began talking about an operation, how they discuss getting this operation shows the strong gender roles between Jig and the man.

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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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Popular Mechanics Raymond Carver

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When he gets back to her she has decided to have the baby if he wants to or not and is fine with it if he leaves saying “I feel fine… there’s nothing wrong with me” as in if there is something wrong it is with him (Hemingway

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Hills Like White Elephants Literary Criticism

1098 Words | 5 Pages

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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Use Of Irony In Hills Like White Elephants

1180 Words | 5 Pages

In “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, is a short story about abortion and how it explores the relationship between Jig and the American man while they have this decision. The StudyCorgi essay “Symbolism, Setting, Irony in Hemingway’s “” Hills Like White Elephants”, mentions that Hemingway uses irony throughout the story so the reader thinks about abortion, this can be seen as dramatic irony. The portrayal of a pregnancy unwanted by the American man but wanted by Jig. It is evident that Jig is not comfortable going through an abortion and the American man knows that she is not comfortable but goad ahead to say that he is not concerned with whatever she does as long as she is content. Ironically, the American man keeps pressuring Jig no matter how many times she has repeated that she does not want to, he keeps saying “It is a simple operation”.

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Time In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1898 Words | 8 Pages

On Hemingway’s Time We can never free ourselves from the bondages of time, but the decisions we make along the way, can change our lives and the lives of others, forever. In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants”, an American man and a young woman must face the challenge of having to make a life altering decision, in a limited amount of time. Hemingway uses a very short timeline to tell his story, he makes time relevant in the story’s setting, and also in his written dialogue. This short story demonstrates that although time can sometimes be forgotten, it can surely become of the essence. This story revolves around two main characters, Jig who is a young woman, and an American, who is a nameless man.

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509 Words | 3 Pages

The later jacket of In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway conveys motion and represents the precariousness of the lives of the book’s characters. On the cover, an image of two soldiers carrying rifles and climbing up a hill is layered over the image of a young man sitting in the caboose of a steam train, leaning on a bundled blanket that is tied to its railing. The advancing soldiers and train evoke the sense of movement that frames many of the stories. We see an example of this movement in “Big Two-Hearted River: Part I,” which begins with an image of a train going “on up the track out of sight” (133) after it has dropped Nick Adams off in his hometown. The disappearing train suggests the end of one expedition and the start of another, implying

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Abortion In Hills Like White Elephants, By Ernest Hemingway

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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Hills Like White Elephants Character Analysis

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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