Hills Like White Elephant Analysis

INTRO OF AUTHOR

Richard David Bach, an American writer, was born in the year 1936 in Oak Park, Illinois. He is the son of Roland Robert and Ruth Helen. He entitles himself to be a successor of Johann Sebastian Bach, a well-known German composer. Since he was 17 years old, he pursued flying as an interest. He attended Long Beach State College in 1955. He has numerous works of fiction and nonfiction – Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970), Illusions (1977) and Out of My Mind (1999). It was said that most of his books have been semi-autobiographical, using real or adapted events from his life to exemplify his philosophy. Bach’s philosophy is that our external physical limits and mortality are just appearance. Bach is well-known for his love of flying;

The author directly stated that all of us are a Jonathan Seagull. It is interconnected with the central theme since Jonathan hungers for the exploration of his potentials and knowledge.

– Jonathan Livingston Seagull is the same as Hills like White Elephants, there’s a hidden meaning within the title. In Hills Like White Elephants, there are multiple meaning that the readers can associate with the elephants. In Jonathan, it is up to the audience of how they will interpret the Seagull if it’s a good character or a bad character.

Isolation

Another theme is that isolation is often necessary for the transmission of knowledge. A leader must often distinguish himself from the crowd before he has any followers or before he can offer a different path from that which is already known.

Perfection

Jonathan achieves perfection in his flying and is transported to a new world, where he learns to move on to the next level of consciousness. Perfection is depicted as the ability to move between time and space in ways that the average gull cannot. It allows Jonathan to bring Fletcher back to life and to communicate through thought instead of spoken words.