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Hills Like White Elephants

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In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants, a story begins of two completely opposite sceneries separated by railroads in between a train station with the sun shining. On one side you have hills in a valley that were long and white. On the other you a plain field with no trees and no shade. The story continues about an American man and a girl sitting on a table in the shadow of a building with bamboo strings in the door to keep the flies out. As the story progresses, a conversation between the two commences. They start to describe the scenery they see. The hills were white in the sun, and the country was brown and dry. The girl says “the hills look like white elephants” (785). The conversation continues and the girl says again, “they’re …show more content…

Hemingway’s setting in the short story is a landscape of two very different kinds of land. On one side, the valley with hills in which when the sun shines on it seems like they are white. On the other side, it is brown and dry and there are no trees nor shade. This represents to me the outcome of the decision that is to be made by the characters. My interpretation of this description is that the “hills like white elephants” indicate that the choice should be to not have the abortion. The hills represent the baby in the mother’s womb and I believe that the girl loves the idea of it because she states that they’re “lovely hills” (786). I feel the author wants the girl to have the child because of that piece of dialogue. The girl also says that “through the trees” were “fields of grains” and a “river” and beyond that was a “mountain” indicating the final months of the pregnancy (787). She also states “we could have all of this” and “we could have everything” but “no we can’t” and “it isn’t ours anymore” and once they take it away, you never get it back” (787). The dialogue and symbolism in this part indicate she wants the baby and thinks it beautiful as the hills. She believes if she has the abortion, her life is going to be brown and dry with no life and no

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