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Hills Like White Elephant By Ernest Hemingway

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All authors have different writing styles. Some make up what they write about, but others write exactly what they know. This is what Ernest Hemingway did. He related all his works to his childhood experiences and people he came across in his life. He brought his childhood with his mother and father into his works, and he also brought in the time periods into his works. Although he wasn’t very detailed and was to the point, one still has to dig underneath the surface of the text to find the hidden meaning he provided the reader with. In Hemingway's, "Hills Like White Elephants," the vivid thoughts and experiences from his lifetime show through complicated character relationships and the struggle of times in the 1920s. Because he writes about …show more content…

He was stuck between the decision of choosing between his first wife Hadley, or his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer (Reynolds). He based “the girl and the American” off of his marriage to Pauline. In this marriage, Pauline put Hemingway above everything, sometimes including her children’s needs. This is a parallel to the girl always doing things and questioning herself to please the American, She was trying to please the American because back in the 1920s women were not supposed to have power and knowledge over the superior male race. When the American gets defensive over the girl’s knowledge, “Our backward glance reveals …show more content…

“Abortion is represented not as an ordinary health issue which may be neither dangerous nor traumatic, but as a threat to (most) women, a horrifying experience, of which they are victims in a system of double dealing morality and exploitative economic and sexual relations” (Moore). The horrifying experience explains why the girl was so hesitant on getting the operation. Even though the American said that it would be a simple operation or unlike an operation at all, that still did not comfort the girl because of how abortions were new and not legal in America until 1973, and in Spain until 1985 so it made it highly nerve wracking knowing that this is set in the 1920s. Since she was not sure about the decision, the girl threw the idea back into the American’s face by swearing him into an oath of love and promises of long time happiness if she got the operation. Their conversations were empty and instead of talking to each other, they were mostly talking at one another, which made both of them at

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333 Words | 2 Pages

Ernest Hemingway uses repetition and ambiguity in his story, “Hills like White Elephants'' to exhibit the idea that in order to maintain a healthy long-term relationship, communication and consideration of one another’s values are needed. Throughout this story, a couple, Jig and the American, are having an intense and emotional conversation about whether Jig should have an abortion. She displays very sensitive feelings about the procedure, and the American takes advantage of this by trying to manipulate her, repeatedly stating it is her choice: “if [she doesn’t] want to [she doesn’t] have to. [He] wouldn’t have [her] do it if [she] didn’t want to” (477). By doing this he falsely implies he has no opinion, but later contradicts himself by

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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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564 Words | 3 Pages

Hemingway, the author of “Hills Like White Elephants” characterize his two main characters in the short story with specific literary techniques to define each character. This story captures the conversation between and American man and a woman (Jig) sitting with him at a table in a bar. Hemingway reveals the thoughts, emotions, and concerns of each character through their response in the conversation and body language. Through the usage of indirect and direct characterization, obscure language of the characters, and a shift in the tone all to help the author reveal specific aspects of the main characters. Through the usage of characterization of the characters directly and indirectly, help the author to reveal given and non-given details

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853 Words | 4 Pages

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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322 Words | 2 Pages

Authors often can emphasizes their theme in their works by using the setting, imagery, and other techniques. In Ernest Hemingway's short story "Soldier's Home" you can this techniques at work talking about how difficult it is for soldiers to adjust to normal life after combat. Hemingway used imagery and characterization well to describe how Krebs feels coming home from war. "Soldier's Home" is great at explaining the protagonists feelings in his situation with these techniques. The story is about a man named Harold Krebs who has returned from the Great War; It was one of the most gruesome and bloodiest wars the world has known up to that point.

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1004 Words | 5 Pages

It is a sensitive topic and may even not be accepted in society. The woman is apprehensive and does not know what will happen next if she does decide to get an abortion (Norton). The relationship between the characters shows that the woman depends on the man’s approval but also seeks acceptance and

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1006 Words | 5 Pages

The man states, "It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig" (Hemingway 230). The operation would not have been simple; instead it would have been awfully difficult and risky procedure. During the 1920s, abortion was a very taboo subject and was not readily available in all locations. Many of the clinics available had questionable conditions which could result in many things going wrong during the abortion procedure. Some of the possible negative consequences of abortions at this time were heavy bleeding, an increased risk of infections, or possibly death.

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932 Words | 4 Pages

Though Ernest’s Hemingway’s Hill like White Elephant Michael Hollinger’s Naked Lunch were written more than five decades apart and depict fundamentally different character and situations, both short stories raise similar question about the role of a men who approach to the situation and how they want to control their circumstances. Respectively work reveals a man who adapts to society’s expectation of gender to be dominance, but with their pride, they become stoic. While both Hemingway’s American man and Hollinger’s Vernon are compassion, Vernon’s submissiveness creates a clear explanatory of his break up relationship while the American man’s insincerity create emotionally and physically damage to his partner’s needs. These short stories advent

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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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676 Words | 3 Pages

Two of the major topics that Ernest Hemingway portrays in his writings are gender roles and the lost generation. The story that portrays both of these the most is “Hills Like White Elephants.” This story is symbolism for an abortion that only one of the characters wants. The other story that portrays the lost generation is “Soldiers Home.” Gender roles play a huge part on the lost generation in these stories.

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763 Words | 4 Pages

Ernest Hemingway’s style of writing is minimalistic. One story in particular, “Hills Like White Elephants”, shows this type of writing. Hemingway’s stories make the reader follow along by not labeling the dialog of the characters. His stories are often short and require the reader to determine the motivations of the characters. These characteristics are what define Hemingway’s writing style as minimalistic.

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496 Words | 2 Pages

In the conversation Hemingway never mentions the topic, but assumes that the reader will make accurate assumptions. Though we as onlookers understand what Jig and The American are discussing, we have no idea what their thoughts and feelings are. In this short story, Hemingway primarily make use of internal and without focalization, because the audience does not get in to the

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1779 Words | 8 Pages

The Ernest Hemingway Biography Ernest Hemingway was celebrated as one of the world’s most influential writers of the twentieth century. Born on July 21, 1899 in Cicero, Illinois (now known as Oak Park, Ill.), he was named Ernest Miller Hemingway by his father Clarence Hemingway, a physician, and mother Grace Hall, a music teacher (Ernest Miller Hemingway). Ernest Hemingway was only one of the five children that Clarence and Grace Hemingway would have. Raised in Chicago during his adolescent years and vacationing in northern Michigan, Hemingway was able to “find material for his early fiction: events of sudden tragedy and pathos endured by the local Indians; the life and death consciousness of a hunter or fisherman” (Baughman). As a child,

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1426 Words | 6 Pages

In fact, Baker asserts that “no other writer of our time had so fiercely asserted, so pugnaciously defended, or so consistently exemplified the writer's obligation to speak truly” (Baker, 1) while many consider Hemingway’s work “the prose of reality” (Levin, 5). He writes about his own experiences. He writes about the truth. Hemingway often juxtaposes “romantic preconception[s]...with harsh reality” (Levin, 6). Not only is this contrast ironic, but it also highlights the opposition between each notion.

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1594 Words | 7 Pages

Ernest Hemingway 's short poems set him apart from the rest of the twentieth century literary crowd. His dramatic life serves as his primary source of inspiration for his greatest pieces of art. Living in the twentieth century, Hemingway 's poetry got its unique opportunity to flourish taking advantage of the freedom of expression, something that opposed to the previous century. By making the smart choice of detecting the best of this literary era, Hemingway found a way of expressing himself in the simplest way possible. By representing himself in his literary work, he became recognizable and adored by the younger population.

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