More handpicked essays just for you.
What does hills like white elephants mean
"hills like white elephants" summary and hidden meanings
What does hills like white elephants mean
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Literary Analysis #2 Hills Like White Elephants This short story by Ernest Hemmingway, is about a man and woman’s difference in opinion with one another. The couple is waiting on a train to arrive at the junction station to take them to Madrid, Spain so that the woman can have an operation. In this story, Hemmingway utilizes symbolism and clues to explain the plot of the story and the conflict the two characters are having.
Hemingway’s symbolism in Hills Like White Elephants Ernest Hemingway among the best of authors of his time, uses a quite different approach to his writings. His style to of writing is often vague and unclear. Hemmingway only gives a bit of content about the story, and the rest is hidden or missing entirely. The audiences are therefore forced to read more carefully and piece together the story. The style of writing he uses is known as the iceberg theory.
The story of the Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway is about an American man and a young girl. They were waiting at a train station in Barcelona, drinking together. While they were waiting on the train to go to Madrid they had a conversation about something. Although the dialogue didn’t directly say what they were discussing, certain clues were given that pieced everything together about the conversation they were having. The interactions between the two have something to do with the fact that they had a physical encounter.
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.
"Hills Like White Elephants" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway that was published in 1927. The story takes place in a train station in Spain. There are two central characters, the American and Jig. They are having a very serious conversation about a pivotal point in their relationship. They are discussing about a certain operation that is not specifically explained in the story, but it is implied to be an abortion.
In Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, a conversation takes place involving two people who discuss an crucial decision to make that is unknown to the audience. Jig, the young girl in the discussion seems to be the one who is ultimately going to be the most affective by this decision. While, the American man, whose name is not mentioned, frequently encourages the woman that whatever choice she makes he will stand by her. The ambiguous choice to make is assumed by many scholars to be about an abortion (Cummings) which is referred to in the text by the American as “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” (Hemingway 887). The conversation between these two lovers is clearly dominated by the young girl, Jig, who uses various techniques of psychological manipulation to influence the man and figure out if he is truly loyal to her.
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.
Ernest Hemingway uses dialogue, symbolism, and setting in “Hills Like White Elephants” to convey his theme, which is the difference between talking and communicating. The story starts at a train station planted in the middle of a desolate valley. The two characters in the story is a guy known as the American and a female known as the girl. The two couple face a difficult situation on how to deal with an unplanned pregnancy. The two characters just talk, but they do not take the time to understand and listen to each other.
In the short story, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway from the start makes us draw out our own conclusions and does not give us a great deal of information. For example, we are only told about two characters, an American man and a girl who are waiting for their train to arrive. Other than this, we are not told what relationship the characters share together or where their final destination is. The protagonist who is referred to as “the girl” is in the middle of a tragic situation which can take a turn for the best or the worst and her partner, the “American man” is not helping but making the situation more heated.
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.
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.
One should always have the right to make decisions on their own. There is a point in a person’s circle where another person’s input is appreciated and sometimes accepted. It is still up to the person to go forward or refrain from their decisions. In “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, the story involves two characters the American and “Jig” which to the interpretation of the story leaves us to the imagination that they are facing a possible abortion. With time progressing in the story we can see the struggle that Jig is faced with, and if whether she must go forward with this operation or not is unclear.
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.
The story titled, “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway is about a young American man and a woman, who is waiting at a railway station for a train that will take them to Madrid. They are drinking liquor as they wait and discusses what the American man says will be "a simple operation" for the girl. The man, while urging the girl to have the operation, says again and again that he really doesn 't want her to do it if she really doesn 't want to. However, he clearly is insisting that she do so. The girl is trying to decline to have the operation but the couple keeps arguing.
The dialog between the American and the girl, as she is referred to by the narrator, occurs at the bar near the station. It begins by the man saying “It’s pretty hot.”, and the girl replies to him with a simple suggestion: “Let’s drink beer” (Mays, 2014, p.115). This reference to the high temperature and the hot sun at the beginning of the story supports the idea of extreme tension between the two characters. Heat and hot climates are symbolic of tension and adversity. But the gist of the idea here is how her suggestion of drinking beer contradicts and cools down the sense of tension brought by the man’s complaint of the heat with cold alcoholic drinks, which symbolize the need to temporarily avoid a problem.
