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Slopes Like White Elephants Literary Analysis

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Correspondence is the way to building a solid establishment of trust between a man and lady. In Ernest Hemingway's "Slopes Like White Elephants" we find out about the correspondence breakdown, between a lady named Jig and her friend who is an American man. They should settle on a choice that will influence both of their lives, and conceivably end their relationship. The setting of the story speaks to Jig and her association with her American partner. "The slopes over 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" (Hemingway 224). "The slopes were white in the sun and the nation was dark colored and dry" (Hemingway 224). This story utilizes …show more content…

Jig sees her pregnancy as a positive experience other than a negative experience. She is deeply in love with the man. She would like to settle down and have a life with the man. Yes, “said the girl. “Everything tastes of liquorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe” (Hemingway …show more content…

As per Hal Holladay: What is basic in this story, as in Hemingway's fiction by and large, is the unexpected hole amongst appearance and reality. The apparently trivial discussion here about slopes and drinks and an unspecified task is in reality an implied however unequivocal battle about whether they keep on living the clean, liberal, wanton life favored by the man or choose to have the child that Jig is conveying and settle down to an ordinary at the same time, in Jig's view, fulfilling, productive, and serene life. Throughout the story you can compromise as a couple in a relationship, but deep inside of two individual people, they may want their life different from what the other person may want. To have a baby is expensive to raise. The man impregnated Jig and he doesn’t want to take care of the child. The man wants to be free from responsibility. He thinks an abortion is a way out of this problem. Jig wants to make the man happy, but her as well. She knows that her decision doesn’t only affect her, but everyone who is in her situation. Jig's reference to white elephants could be in reply to the baby. The American could see the baby as a white elephant and not want to raise it because of the cost, while Jig could see the child as an extraordinary addition to her mundane life of drinking and mindless traveling. Ernest Hemingway is bringing you into Jig and the man’s

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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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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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The relationship between the American and the girl in “Hills Like White Elephants.” In the 1900s, there was a distinct relationship between a man and a woman, with each having their own traits. During this time, Ernest Hemingway also had his own idea of this relationship which he portrays in his story, “Hills Like White Elephants”. Within this story, the relationship between the two characters, the American and the girl, is portrayed as strained and distanced by their constant avoidance of the “elephant in the room”.

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By definition a “White Elephant” in literature is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness. In the following short story, the situation that the couple is in can be described as a “White Elephant”. Throughout the story a couple, a Spanish woman and an American man, are sitting at a train station waiting for their train. While there, they decide to talk about the issue at hand, a pregnancy. Jig, the Spanish woman, is eager to keep the unborn child as the American man who is the father is not.

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It is widely known that a lack of communication within a relationship almost always puts a detrimental strain on it. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, the narrative revolves around an unspoken conflict between a woman named Jig and her significant other, referred to as the American man. In the story, Jig and the American man are travelling in Spain. At a train station, they are talking about an “operation” (Hemingway 476) Jig is to have; one can infer they are talking about an abortion.

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The American’s immediate fear is him having to marry Jig to “make an honest woman of her”, if she has the baby (Hannum). So the American starts talking about his love for Jig and claiming that the abortion is “perfectly simple,” just “to let the air in.” But Jig

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The struggles presented between these two characters bring to light issues in human relationships that weigh into everyday life. Hemingway’s short story reveals to readers how relationships affect communication, decision

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Even though it is not said directly, it is still easy for the audience to understand that what Jig and her boyfriend are talking about is a woman’s matter. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Hemingway does not reveal the underlying meaning, but rather uses symbolism in his story through Jig’s attitude towards her boyfriend, the station in which the couple is at, and the absinthe drink she tries. Jig has an attitude about her that makes seem childish. She repeats her words as if she were a young child would when they want something they cannot have.

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This story symbolizes a couple’s opinion about life. It also symbolizes how people approach different opportunities that come through the course of life. The man clearly wants to live a life that is favored around living care free and traveling. He wants to see and do as much as possible with less responsibilities. Jig, the women in the relationship, is seemingly interested in keeping the child.

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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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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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“Avoiding the White Elephant” In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants”, by Ernest Hemmingway, a girl and an American man in a romantic relationship are at a crossroads, both as the setting, and in their romantic relationship. The American man and girl have been nomadic together as a romantic couple, but at the current moment the two are stagnate arguing. When the two start downing alcohol, it becomes clearer that the girl is pregnant and the man is inclined in favor of her to get an abortion, though neither ever directly speaks the issue. The two remain to argue around the obvious issue at hand, the girl remarks on the barren but beautiful white hills around them and the alcohol they are drinking, the man is persistent to reach agreement

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According to Smiley, “The dialogue contains the essence of the story's power; for to read Jig's and the American conversation is to recognize the powerless frustration of parallel interchanges” (2). The girl's character passes changes throughout the story. It appears that “Hemingway works out the story's conflict, which revolves around the development of his female character” (Renner 28). The girl gains power and frees herself from the following the American man. In the beginning of the story, the girl take the initiative to speak which leads to the discussion: “'what should we drink?'

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It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (Hemingway). She asks her partner multiple times if the abortion will make him happy and if the operation would end their fighting. He persuades Jig by stating he knows numerous people who have do the operation and he says he thinks it is the best thing to do. It seems as though Jig has been conditioned to listen to the man’s wants because she states, “Then I’ll do it [the operation]. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway).

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‘Well, I care about you.’ ‘Oh, yes. But I don't care about me. And I'll do it and then everything will be fine.’" (Hemingway 3).

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