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Hills Like White Elephant By Ernest Hemingway Symbolism Essay

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The setting of the story is a train station/bar. The symbolic significance of this setting is representing the critical point of a relationship between a man and a woman. It tells the reader that the decision between them will affect whether or not these two people will be together. It also represents the need for the confrontation of the problem, due to the soon arrival of the train. The girl in the situation is often looking off into the distance, which is a hilly area that she describes the scene as "hills like white elephants". Her saying this shows the disconnect between the two people is going through. It also represents the problem and how they can't come to a solution they both like driving them even further apart. Ernest Hemingway …show more content…

The setting is where Hemingway uses his symbolism the most. Hemingway uses the setting to paint the picture of the rocky and disjointed relationship between these two people. For example, Hemingway wrote in "Hills like White Elephants", "The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on." This represents the inner conflict and sorrowfulness the girl is going through because the two can't find a resolution to the problem at hand. Hemingway also uses dialogue to represent the conflict. The dialogue between the two characters is filled with tension and miscommunication. The man does not directly state but tries to convince the woman to go through with an abortion, while the woman is unsure and unhappy with the idea of doing so. The two people often keep away from the problem at hand, by using symbols to avoid talking about it. For example, the man refers to the operation as "just a simple operation" and the woman repeatedly refers to "the hills like white elephants." These symbols serve as a metaphor for the larger issue at hand and highlight the couple's inability to directly address and resolve their

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The short story "Hills Like White Elephants," is about a couple that is really young and the is having a issue about abortion. The author uses a lot of rhetorical devices to convey his message but mostly use imagery and symbolism. The way that the story is told by the author the reader can see the story told in their head. The way that the author describe the hills and the town that they was in it shows a lot of imagery. The story also picture the couple waiting for the train that they had been waiting for.

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White elephants are rare animals and a small amount of people have ever seen a white elephant. The elephant symbolizes that the operation that the woman is going to get is an operation that not everyone gets, only the privileged people. She also makes statements about not caring about herself in attempt to get the American to change his mind about the operation. The American states that this pregnancy is what is causing turmoil in their relationship and causing the couple unhappiness.

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Hills Like White Elephants #1 Describe the setting and discuss its importance to the story. •Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is set in a train station to highlight the fact that the relationship between the American and the girl is at a crossroads. Planted in the middle of a valley, the station isn’t the final destination, but merely a stopping point between Barcelona and Madrid. Night

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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.

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The group 's success in legalizing rights and enacting laws for African Americans can be traced back to its members influential members, including, W.E.B Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, James W. Johnson, Benjamin Hooks, and many others. “W.E.B Du Bois, was an African American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar” (NAACP.ORG). Du Bois was best known for his work with the NAACP, as director and publicity and research for the group. Throughout his role in the NAACP, he contributed towards founding the Niagara Movement, which was “an African American protest group of scholars and professionals” (NAACP.ORG). Du Bois also took part in writing The Crisis, a journal of 1910 (Revisor, Manly) which spoke publicly about the issues having to do with racism, targeting both African Americans and whites.

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In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway employs characterization and diction to illustrate that men can be very powerful and horrible. While introducing the characters the narrator says, “The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building” (1). Ernest Hemingway uses diction to emphasize that there is an American man and a foreign girl. He wants readers to consider that the man has power because he is more experienced than the underage girl. After telling her it’s her decision and trying to sway her decision he reveals “‘I think it’s the best thing to do.

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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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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.

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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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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.

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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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We are dead. There is no escape. We have betrayed the World Council. The elders will sentence us to death, no doubt soon, they may even be on their way now. They will break down the doors and drag us by our limbs to the palace.

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The concept of the white elephant, in this story, represents the baby or for the girl the decision of what to do with the baby. The term “white

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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

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