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Hills Like White Elephants Essay

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“Hills like White Elephants” is a one of a kind short story written by Ernst Hemingway. In this story, he decides to use the third person objective point of view, which makes the plot both thought-provoking and confusing. One might ask, does the third person objective point of view make the story more interesting? First, in “Hills like White Elephants” Hemingway makes use of a third person limited narrator. Therefore, the narration is only limited to what the characters say and do. By not showing the character’s motives, mind-set and attitudes, Hemingway’s allows the reader to interpret this for themselves. The whole story is told as if you, the reader, is present at the scene and overhearing the couple’s conversation. Much of the story is told through the dialogue between Jig and The American, within the dialogue the couple discusses whether to have the operation or not: “"It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig," the man said. "It's not really an operation at all."” 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 …show more content…

For example, at some point doing the couple’s conversation the American tries to convince Jig to have an abortion “We can have the whole world. (…) We can go anywhere.” The American dialogue makes the reader know that having the abortion will allow the couple to be free from responsibility. At one point, Jig says “No we can’t. It isn’t ours any more… And once they take it away, you never get it back.” This shows that Jig believes having the whole world means settling

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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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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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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.

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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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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.

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1013 Words | 5 Pages

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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There is much more to a piece of literature than simply the characters and the plot, the setting a fundamental aspect of a story, especially in fiction this short without much dialogue. In Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway uses the setting not only to give the readers a sense of time and place but also to allow them inside the characters’ lives and creates the world inside the story in which every action, every answer and every hill has a meaning. Fiction often tends to be rooted in a sense of place and the integral setting in Hills Like White Elephants allow the readers to get an in depth glimpse inside the characters’ heads, their thoughts and attitude towards the plot. It has influenced the characters’ actions and responses,

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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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663 Words | 3 Pages

“They don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.” Comparing the hills to the unborn baby, is a perfect symbol for a topic that is painfully obvious that no one wants to discuss. Overall the story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway is a difficult story to understand at first glance. However, reading the story a few times becomes easier to understand the story’s true purpose, which Hemingway illustrates wonderfully with symbolism and

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969 Words | 4 Pages

This tells us that his point of view is subjective by writing about each character equally by giving their thoughts about each other's choices and letting their actions speak louder than their words. Furthermore, this shows the theme of the not appreciating what's in front of you because the American already made up his decision by his actions to move the luggage to the train station meanwhile Jig sat by herself trying to make her decision of what to

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Set in a barren background depicted as “The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun” (Hemingway, 252), the contrast of these symbols of death next to symbols of life and springtime - “Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains” (Hemingway, 254) - is striking. Moreover, it can be discovered that while the American represents the darkness that forcing the girl to abort, Jig herself has a sense of connection with light.

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Along with these movements Jig also changes her mind about her relationship with the American. In the first stage Hemingway creates the impression that the girl still has to make the decision about the surgery. This idea is created by the description of the scenery in which the station is amidst the two lines of rails and what the girl sees on the other side. (251) The dryness and the brown colour of the country refer to a lack

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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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