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Hills Like White Elephant Symbolism Essay

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For many of centuries, authors commonly used an object or person to symbolically portray a deeper ideal or theme. Ernest Hemingway’s short story, Hills Like White Elephants, is a strong example of the use of symbolism. The basis of the story is a short conversation between an American and his girlfriend on a train in Spain. After a few rounds of drinks, the couple begins to argue about an operation, which from context clues is easily concluded to be abortion. The story ends when their next train comes in, and the girl eventually decides to quit arguing. Hemingway expertly applies symbolism within his work to create a story where the reader must analyze actions or objects to understand the deeper theme. Many of the symbols in the story have more than one meaning …show more content…

Hemingway, through his symbolism of a white elephant, reveals to the reader how the girl feels indecisive about the abortion. Another way Hemingway uses symbolism is the nickname he creates for the girl. During the conversation, the American tells the girl, “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” (Hemingway 312). A generally known definition of jig is a fast, upbeat dance with lots of leaping movements. The nickname “Jig” symbolizes how the girl is dancing around the topic of abortion. It shows how she is unsure of the choice she wants to make and would rather just avoid having to speak of it. The nickname could also refer to the fast, leaping movements in her life. She is not married to the baby’s father, so her pregnancy was probably an unplanned, sudden surprise. Now she must quickly decide, within a few months, to have abortion or not, a choice that will determine the future of her entire life. Another definition for jig is a tool, which controls the location or movement of another tool. This can be analyzed in two different ways. The first interpretation can be how the American views the girl as a device or tool for his own pleasures. Grzegorzewski

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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.

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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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In the short story “Where are you going, Where have you been?” Joyce Carol introduced her audience to the story of Connie, a teenager whose only priority was to look good for boys and be the center of attention. By using symbolism, Oates used Friend as Connie’s punishment from her actions. On ‘Hills like white elephant” Ernest Hemingway’s uses symbolism on a heel, alcohol and roads to represent their life and choices. Both of this stories use symbolism to represent their life and the choices they did or going to make in their life.

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They each bring up different points as to why throughout the story. In Earnest Hemingway’s short story Hills like White Elephants written in 1927 he uses the hills themselves, the scenery that the couple is surrounded by, and the beaded curtain as symbols to describe the situation that the couple faces. In this short story, the hills that the train station overlook are compared to white elephants. This is because the conversation Jig is wanting to have with the American consists of whether or not to keep the

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In Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”, the American and Jig are like parallel lines, they can never meet. As they struggle to find common ground, the very discussion that can bring them together only tears them apart. The relationship between Jig and the American is complex from the very beginning since their personalities, methods of communicating, and desires are different. The American represents infertility, selfishness and death but how can he not be when he’s a single man, traveling, trying new drinks, spending nights in hotels with no worry about money and now he has impregnated a women, of course he will lose his zest for her (Hannum).

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Symbolism in Hills Like White Elephants In short stories, because of the length of the story, all actions, words, and objects carry more of a meaning. These are referred to as symbols. Symbols represent something important without really saying anything, but more seeing and visualizing something. Symbolism creates a needed depth and allows the reader to think more creatively.

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If analyzed in a more generic view, the short story can be used to show how a male and female stereotypically understand a subject. The American speaks more literal and materialistic as Jig is seen to speak in a more figurative and abstract manner. Ernest Hemingway’s use of symbolism gives the reader a more visual effect to the conflict between the man and the girl as well as the idea of their inner thoughts. The white rounded hills, the beads on the curtain hanging from the bar’s doorframe, and the cool shade and blazing light all represent different aspects of the two choices that the American and the girl have to decide on, just like the railroad tracks on either side of the

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In the story we see how the conversation develops between both of the characters. In Scott Consigny’s article, “Hemingway's Hills like White Elephants”, he talks about the bamboo curtain that was hanging in the door of the bar. Consigny begins to tell us the symbolism behind this curtain and how it is “a symbolic barrier between jig and her American lover” (p.1). We can only agree to this as we keep reading and notice the different decisions that both characters want to make. The conversation between both of them is very lively up until he mentions the operation.

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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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Another literary element Ernest Hemingway uses effectively is symbolism. The obvious symbol in this story is white elephants. At the beginning of the story the woman compares the hills to white elephants. “The girl was looking off at the lines of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry,” and “They look like white elephants,” she said.

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Symbolism plays a fundamental role in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”. The different symbols used throughout the story are capable of subtly conveying intricate concepts to the readers of this recognized literary work. It then becomes essential for them to detect all these symbols, and discern the deep meanings which they hold in order to truly grasp the story’s message which the author intended to transmit. Without this insight, many first-time readers may view the story as a simple and casual dialog between two people, a man and a woman, waiting for a train from Barcelona to Madrid. Thus, they become unaware of the intense conflict the two main characters are actually facing, haunted by the difficult decision of terminating a pregnancy

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Tales are told from the word of the mouth to the ears of the listener. It is from the ear of the listener can the tale be told with a new light. Sherwood Anderson is not the teller of the tales showcased in this book, Winesburg, Ohio, George Willard, but George Willard is the narrator. He is a young man who listens to the stories of lonely alienated people. Through the word of the mouth we are able to have a visual of the people he describes, and the personality that are shown as their situations are unfolding throughout their tales.

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During the course of the story “Hills Like White Elephants” the author Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism to describe the the main idea of the girl having the “operation.” Hemingway uses the landscape, the white elephant, and the term “elephant in the room” to represent different aspects of the pregnancy and abortion. The landscape in the story represents choosing the abortion or choosing to keep the baby. The setting of the story is at a train station.

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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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