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Characterization in hills like white elephants
Ernest hemingway's hills like white elephants research
Hemingway essay on hills like white elephants
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In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, there is a relationship unfolding, a complex relationship difficult to understand. The relationship is revealed by a conversation between a man and a woman, a topic of conversation that people rarely discussed in the period that the story was set. After researching interpretations, it is consistently said “She is pregnant, and he wants her to have an abortion” (Weeks 76), to which I agree that this conversation is about abortion. With the man seemingly pushing the topic and the girl hesitant and questionable, it is unsure as to the result of their conversation. However, it is my belief that she chose to follow her heart and not get the abortion.
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
Both the woman and Reverend Hooper feel pressure from societal expectations, as they struggle to reconcile with their own desires. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, the woman is internally conflicted with the devastating decision of whether or not to have a child with her partner. While struggling with her own desires, she feels the burden of societal expectations weighing down on her decision, pressuring her to conform to traditional gender roles and starting a family with her partner. When expressing her reluctance to have an abortion, she states that she will “do it and everything will be fine” (Hemingway 3). In order to accommodate society's norms, the woman is suggesting that she is willing to sacrifice her own desires.
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.
In the story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, Jig turns to religion when making a life changing decision. Jig, a women, and an American man are at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid. The women compares the hills nearby to white elephants, a symbol of overcoming obstacles and connected to fertility and knowledge. In document d, Jig is believed to be making a decision on whether to have an abortion or not.
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.
Chopin may suggest that Mrs. Mallard feels restricted to live her life with a partner in her life. Hemmingway does not reveal the thoughts of the characters leaving readers at suspense. Readers must interpret what is going on between the girlfriend and her boyfriend in Hills Like White Elephants (Hemmingway). The white elephants in his story represent fertility. Both the woman and her boyfriend struggle to speak of abortion.
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.
Important parts of the story are not discovered instantly. In the story, Hills Like White Elephants, symbolism is used to describe an unstable relationship between a man and women. Symbolism is portrayed in Hills Like White Elephants through the couple’s consumption of alcohol, the setting and mood of the story, the white elephant, the elephant in the room and the number two. When reading Hills Like White Elephants, it is obvious that drinking alcohol is a large part of their relationship. Alcohol is not portrayed as a good thing.
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.
In Asian culture, the white elephant is seen as a burden as it is costly to care for and an unwanted burden despite it being considered a holy animal. As their conversation continues, it is clear to see that they are arguing about whether to go through with the abortion. The white elephant for the couple is supposedly the child that the girl is carrying within her. Some critics argue that the white elephant represents not just the unborn baby, but also Jig in the viewpoint of the American. He is
For example, when she said, “And if I do it you will be happy, and things will be like they were.” (255), she is lonely and desperate girl who is still having hope of being happy. She is in a bad mood and depressed too much to even ready to die, it is obvious from her reply, “I don’t care about me” (255) multiple times, waiting for him to say nice words or even make her feel good. He seems as being selfish and careless by starting this relationship and then lacking the support Jig needs from him. Hills Like White Elephant has a huge description on the story’s sitting in the train station, surrounded with hills, fields, and tress in a valley in Spain.
One of the most notable facets of “Hills Like White Elephants” is the repetition of sentences throughout the short story. With the story running at barely two thousand words, the repetition of these key phrases stands out among the dialogue. The phrase from which the title comes from, “like white elephants”, reoccurs five times within the text. In cultural context, an elephant in the room is an idiom for a burden or an issue at hand that no one wants to discuss.
“Hills Like White Elephants,” written by Ernest Hemingway is a story that must be read between the lines to understand. I had to read this story a few times before truly understanding the meaning. One thing that I noticed about this story that made it very unique was point of views of each characters. As a reader, I could understand that both characters had their different point of views, yet neither of them took the time to understand each others. The things these two characters are not openly discussing is abortion.
the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” She opens the crucial issue in an implicit way when she describes the “hills like white elephant”. Which suggests her imaginative way of thinking: she relates to the hills as the physical shape of her pregnancy, and the white elephants is “something she cannot just throw away but for which, in her present circumstances, she has no use; something that is awkwardly, burdensomely in the way” (Renner 30). The girl faces difficulties in expressing her feelings, but she does not surrender and keeps
