ipl-logo

Hills Like White Elephants Dialogue Analysis

597 Words3 Pages

Ernest Hemingway uses dialogue, symbolism, and setting in “Hills Like White Elephants” to convey his theme, which is the difference between talking and communicating. The story starts at a train station planted in the middle of a desolate valley. The two characters in the story is a guy known as the American and a female known as the girl. The two couple face a difficult situation on how to deal with an unplanned pregnancy. The two characters just talk, but they do not take the time to understand and listen to each other. The dialogue helps convey the theme. While the characters wait for the train they don’t really communicate with each other. The American tries to say anything to convince the girl to get the operation. He says things like, …show more content…

The setting helps convey the theme. The train station represents the character 's relationship as a crossroad. The station mirrors the American’s decision to abort the baby and continue with their relationship with each other. The white hills and valley mirrors the choice the girl faces between abortion or having the baby. Ernest Hemingway describes it as the girl “was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry “(Shackle and Ridl 196). The two settings don’t communicate with each other. Most of the setting is at the train station and only there are brief mentions of the valley itself.
The author uses dialogue, setting, and symbolism to convey his theme. The theme of “Hills Like White Elephants” is the difference between communication and talking. In the dialogue it is mostly the American trying to persuade the girl to have the operation and the girl getting annoyed at him. The setting shows the characters relationship at a crossroad. The white elephant symbolizes the unborn children that no one wants to talk about. The two main characters talk, but do not really take the time to understand or listen to each

Show More
Related
285 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
927 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More
739 Words | 3 Pages

Hemingway sets the story environment at a train station, with two very different sides of the tracks. This setting is interpreted as a metaphor for the choice at hand, an interpretation of life or death. One side reflecting a dry harsh area, with no trees, and devoid of life, on the other side of the

Read More
970 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More
1526 Words | 7 Pages

This story—deceptively simple—is anything but straightforward. " Hills Like White Elephants" is a great portrait of how we talk at, to, and past each other; how we can go on and on and never quite get at what it is we really want to

Read More
1012 Words | 5 Pages

The settings authors use for their stories play an important part in short stories by allowing the authors to express various moods, give insights into the thoughts of their characters, and use symbolism through contrasts in the settings. This essay will look at how the settings of "Hills Like White Elephants" and "Sonny's Blues" were used to reflect the characters' conflicts and emotions while also adding atmosphere and depth to the stories. The short story "Hills Like White Elephants," written by Ernest Hemingway, explores the complexities of human connections. This story follows a couple, Jig and "the American," as they face a major life decision: whether or not to have an abortion, which they refer to as an "operation" (Hemingway 701).

Read More
1554 Words | 7 Pages

The setting (7) of the story, the train station, is a symbol for the place where Jig and the American man are at in their relationship and what lies ahead for them. This symbol also portrays the theme (8) of choice and consequences. They are at an impasse due to the pregnancy, and the train tracks are the futures that could happen based on Jig’s decision about the abortion and the baby. For instance, Jig could agree politely to the American man and go ahead

Read More
813 Words | 4 Pages

Nevertheless, Ernest Hemingway soon shows that this relationship contains a rift. This becomes apparent once they try conversing to one another. The girl attempts to spark a conversation by mentioning that the hills look like white elephants, but this topic soon turns hostile with the American’s replies. How this conversation is handled already shows that the couple “are trapped in a state of imbalance and disagreement” from the beginning (Link). The problem with the conversation is that the American’s personality of being simple and serious.

Read More
746 Words | 3 Pages

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

Read More
1004 Words | 5 Pages

Chopin may suggest that Mrs. Mallard feels restricted to live her life with a partner in her life. Hemmingway does not reveal the thoughts of the characters leaving readers at suspense. Readers must interpret what is going on between the girlfriend and her boyfriend in Hills Like White Elephants (Hemmingway). The white elephants in his story represent fertility. Both the woman and her boyfriend struggle to speak of abortion.

Read More
646 Words | 3 Pages

Speak Essay: Figurative language has a tremendous influence on literature because it enlivens the words and makes them jump off the page. This allows the reader to visualize the scene in a unique, explicit way. Laurie Anderson’s Speak demonstrates an abundant use of figurative language. Figurative language appears in various forms; this includes simile, metaphor, personification, symbol, hyperbole and more.

Read More
893 Words | 4 Pages

In the short story, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway from the start makes us draw out our own conclusions and does not give us a great deal of information. For example, we are only told about two characters, an American man and a girl who are waiting for their train to arrive. Other than this, we are not told what relationship the characters share together or where their final destination is. The protagonist who is referred to as “the girl” is in the middle of a tragic situation which can take a turn for the best or the worst and her partner, the “American man” is not helping but making the situation more heated.

Read More
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.

Read More
786 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
1044 Words | 5 Pages

In his story “Hills Like White Elephants”, Ernest Hemingway points out the couple's inability to make the decision: whether to abort the unborn child or not. The reader finds that the story deals with couple's miscommunication through the conversation and the emotions that they express. One can observe that no descriptions are given to the characters, thus, Hemingway creates universal dilemma to focus on the crucial issue. In this way, Hemingway leads the reader to identify with his female character that undergoes a struggle.

Read More

More about Hills Like White Elephants Dialogue Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document