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Hills Like White Elephants Mood Analysis

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What you can't say owns you, what you hide controls you. Uniquely, in "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway, the girl hides these emotional scars, instead of revealing them. "Hills Like White Elephants" challenges the ideology of concealing one's emotions by using symbolism to challenge the ideology, utilizing the dominant mood of the story, and by highlighting the dangers of the ideology through the main conflict. Various symbols within the text introduce readers with an impression on the structure of their relationship. The text points out how dominance over a spouse can lead to an individual to fear of communicating their emotions. This is clear when the man "picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to …show more content…

For instance, during their discussion on drinks, the girl states "I wanted to try this new drink. That's all we do, isn't it, look at things and try new drinks" (Hemingway 2). This utilization of mood demonstrates the girl being despondent with the life she is experiencing with the man. There is not a genuine heading in their life and this presents readers with how she is already worn out on their migrant way of life. Indeed, living a life of traveling regularly and drinking at their brief destinations. However, concealment of emotions can be seen with how she does not mention her sadness, but readers in general can sense how she is worn out and unhappy with the life she is living. It is seen with how she words her experiences with the man as just "looking at things and trying new drinks". Given these points, the tone of the text points to their failing relationship that in result has led the couples to hide their emotions from one …show more content…

In the text, the girl does not discuss how she feels about the operation and avoids receiving any help to her situation This can be seen when the girl says "But I don't care about me. And I'll do it and then everything will be fine" (Hemingway 3). This verse shows readers how the man has pushed the girl in such a way, where she is forcing herself to go through the operation and hating herself for it. She could have avoided it all through communication with the man, instead she conceals her feelings and assumes everything will be "fine".This point is clear because the girl has concealed her emotions on the topic of abortion and it has led her to commit in something she obviously does not want to undergo and it has made her lose her sense of self worth. By saying she doesn't care for herself and assuring everything will be fine, it is obvious that the girl has a fear of abandonment. She fears that if she disagrees with the man he will leave her and that is not what she wants because she wants everything to be fine. In response, she avoids giving a voice so she doesn't lose the only person in her

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The mood of this story is tense, melancholy, and mournful as proved by this quotation: “Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought you did, when you were in love-soaked, drenched in love- only to discover later that perhaps you didn’t know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren’t quite as well known as you had hoped to be.”

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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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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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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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She cares for him (literally and figuratively), showing that, what the reader anticipates being a point of disillusionment is not. It is mentioned, though, that she feels “miserable and everything felt gone” (Hemingway, 62), but she still loves Jim. This is a woman who should feel victimized, who should be hurt, who should be psychologically damaged, but she is not. Instead of feeling the pain of her world crumbling down, she steps back into her world of illusion, her world that has just become slightly unstable, and continues to inhabit

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