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Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Analysis

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Recommended: Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants

Happily Never After Born in 1899 ("Ernest Hemingway), seventeen years before Planned Parenthood was even started, Ernest Hemingway would witness the difference in attitudes towards abortion and the bills surrounding birth control change during his lifetime ("Our History - Planned Parenthood - Heartland."). Perhaps it is this pivotal exposure to such a controversial and emotion evoking subject that made the concept of fatherhood such a prevalent theme in both his life and work, specifically in Hills Like White Elephants. A father to two boys himself, many imagine Hemingway as the antithesis of the American man so famously depicted in the short story ("Ernest Hemingway). Characterized and portrayed in such an egotistical and controlling manner, …show more content…

This is due to the fact that the text illustrates a highly unbalanced relationship. As Busch states, Jig “dismantles her vision in an effort to win his approval”, and this surrender was in a trivial argument regarding if the hills truly resemble white elephants (Busch 893). Of course, a debate about having a baby is a much heavier topic, and therefore will evoke an even more stubborn attitude from the American man. His argument of course is based solely around himself benefiting, and he is completely willing to end the life of an unborn individual, with whom he shares genetics, as well as greatly upset a woman he loves him (Busch 893). He is open to committing these atrocities to preserve his current lifestyle and ensure nothing directly impacting him changes. Meanwhile, Jig is prepared to go to great lengths to make this man happy, even if it means sacrificing not only her own happiness and morals, but her own child. The sheer amount of love Jig has for this man is made clear when she states “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” and later “But I don’t care about me. And I’ll do it and then everything will be fine” (Hemingway 337). All that matters to altruistic Jig, is the happiness of American man, and unfortunately that is all he cares about as

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Hills Like White Elephants Rhetorical Analysis

739 Words | 3 Pages

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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Good People And Hills Like White Elephants: A Comparative Analysis

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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

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Their Eyes Were Watching God And Hurston's Treatment Of Women

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The man she is with keeps pushing her to make a life-changing decision about an abortion and she says, “I realize… Can’t we maybe stop talking?,” (Hemingway 3). Including this issue specifically is bold for Hemingway as it is controversial, yet he crafts it to bring even more attention to the Girl’s rights and intentionally characterizes her with this strong will and independence. She later threatens to scream, demonstrating that the Girl is unafraid to bring attention to this altercation. Hemingway provides the Girl with a voice that many women did not have. The man craves authority and manipulates her by saying, “I think [getting the abortion is] the best thing to do.

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Hills Like White Elephants Literary Analysis

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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Religion In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1204 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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Hills Like White Elephants Jig Character Analysis

699 Words | 3 Pages

The American’s immediate fear is him having to marry Jig to “make an honest woman of her”, if she has the baby (Hannum). So the American starts talking about his love for Jig and claiming that the abortion is “perfectly simple,” just “to let the air in.” But Jig

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Hills Like White Elephant Symbolism Analysis

1012 Words | 5 Pages

This story symbolizes a couple’s opinion about life. It also symbolizes how people approach different opportunities that come through the course of life. The man clearly wants to live a life that is favored around living care free and traveling. He wants to see and do as much as possible with less responsibilities. Jig, the women in the relationship, is seemingly interested in keeping the child.

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The Dialogue In Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

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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Popular Mechanics Raymond Carver

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In the stories “Popular Mechanics”, written by Raymond Carver, and “Hills Like White Elephants”, written by Ernest Hemingway, show the struggles that sometimes happens while being in a relationship. In “Popular Mechanics” Carver shows the struggle of being cheated on and the fight between the couple over their baby. The baby becomes more of an item when they fight trying to show who is a better person and parent. In “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway shows that not everyone wants to have a baby and that it can change your life drastically. The couples in “Popular Mechanics” and “Hills Like White Elephants” are arguing over a baby, are splitting up, and the stories have settings that represent what is happening.

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Theme Of Disconnection In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

1013 Words | 5 Pages

They begin to not understand what it is that they both want to do. During that part of the conversation it is very clear that the American man wants the girl to have this operation, which is an abortion “’I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to’” (Hemingway p.402). The man clearly wants to do what is in his best interest and not the girl’s and the life forming inside of

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Examples Of Dramatic Irony In Hamlet

269 Words | 2 Pages

Dramatic irony in Hamlet Dramatic irony is found throughout Shakespeare's Hamlet. The first time dramatic irony is introduced is when the ghost, his father approaches hamlet informing him that his own brother had murdered him to take the crown. Readers, also, see dramatic irony at the ending of act 1 where Hamlet is talking to himself about acting insane. In the next scene we find ophelia very confused by her visit from hamlet, she notices that he acted very strange but she is uninformed on the situation.

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Hills Like White Elephants Literary Criticism

1098 Words | 5 Pages

Which is making him more selfish and he does not to have any responsibilities. Also, the reader is also left with a great doubt, as there is no solution. Jig is a Spanish pregnant girl, and she is about to have an abortion. She seems young because she is depending on a careless man.

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Short Story Hills Like White Elephant By Ernest Hemingway

245 Words | 1 Pages

It’s really not anything. It is just to let the air in” (Hemingway 124). One can see then that the American is trying to convince the girl the action she is about to do is nothing that would contradict her values. However, one can

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Hills Like White Elephants Character Analysis

1044 Words | 5 Pages

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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The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway Analysis

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The novel, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, describes the life of some people from the Lost Generation in post-World War I Europe, but mostly in Paris, France and Pamplona, Spain. This novel rotates around Jacob, or Jake, Barnes’, the narrator’s, life; which mostly includes drinking with his friends, Robert Cohn, a Jewish man who is often verbally abused by his “friends”, Ashley Brett, an attractive woman who Jake is in love with, Bill Gorton, a good friend of Jake’s, and a couple others. Their life in dull Paris seems to revolve around spending money and drinking, but when they go to colorful Pamplona, Spain, they have an amazing time during the fun-filled fiesta. Ernest Hemingway uses the “iceberg theory” when he presents Jake Barnes to the reader; he does not directly tell you a lot about Jake, but through Jake’s thoughts and emotions, one can tell that he was injured in the war, he is not a very religious person, he would rather do what he loves, instead of what he must, and he does not like to be honest with himself, despite the fact that he is one of the more honest characters in the novel. Ernest Hemingway does not directly let the reader know that Jake is injured in a special place; he allows the reader to interpret that from Jake’s thoughts and memories.

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