ipl-logo

Hills Like White Elephants Character Analysis Essay

1267 Words6 Pages

The characters of Hills Like White Elephants
Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants short story takes place in a train station in Spain around the 1920s. The two main characters of his story are that of a man and girl waiting for train while drinking and the story is almost entirely told through a conversational dialogue of the characters with a few small descriptive paragraphs of the surrounding scenery of the train station in between. Additionally, Hemingway doesn’t give any characterisation of the mood or theme of the conversation, it is written in a completely neutral manner as if he were only reporting the conversation. He also doesn’t give any context to this conversation leaving the reader for the most part in the dark in regards to the subject matter of the dialogue of the main characters. This can lead many readers to view the story and characters essentially without any actual character or plot making the story pointless. However despite this Hemingway does actually develop his two main characters and gives them personality through their conversation while …show more content…

It is almost entirely told as a conversation and at that a conversation with no direct indication as to the done or context. This style of omission and reportive writing at first glance leaves the reader largely in dark and gives a sense of pointlessness to the story. Yet with close inspection and multiple readings the dialogue of the main figures of the story reveals a lot of details about their character and subject matter of their conversation by allowing the reader to interpret the meaning and tone of what the character are saying without having told them directly. With this method Hemingway not only reveals what his short story is about but also creates characters entirely through conversation managing to make one them a sympathetic character as seen with the

Show More
Related
1312 Words | 6 Pages

The narrator distanced his path of finding his own voice even more when he imitated Hemingway’s stories. Rather than expressing his own voice and identity into his stories, the narrator “typed out Hemingway’s stories” (Wolff 110) causing his search to find his voice much longer. It is clear that Hemingway’s contributions to the school’s literacy contest motivated the narrator erroneously by discouraging the narrator from finding his own

Read More
430 Words | 2 Pages

"I've always loved the idea of not being what people expected me to be" - Dita Von Teese. The novel Water for Elephants" by Sarah Gruen is about two main characters. Jacob, who just lost his parents in a cruel, sufferable way and to deal with this tragedy Jacob leaves town to only stumble upon a circus. He joins this circus as a close to almost vet; considering he didn’t exactly take the exam but did go to school. He meets many new people and falls in love with someone so unexpected.

Read More
595 Words | 3 Pages

Character development is a crucial element to any story, especially due to the fact that is is utilized to create depth within a piece of writing. In Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen presents an extremely dynamic character by the name of Jacob Jankowski. In his old age, he undergoes a significant change in his attitude throughout his time at the nursing home. Through the remembrance of old memories from his life at the circus, Jacob Jankowski develops a sense of happiness and rediscovers his independence.

Read More
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.

Read More
436 Words | 2 Pages

It is a controversial opinion to defend such a practice that goes against “basic” morality. Hemingway makes constant attempts to connect with the reader from using theatre, to wine tasting, orchestras to newspapers. He makes this attempt although it is unlikely that the reader is to agree with his view even though he is making the reader view through different lenses. It is best to approach this selection with not only an open-mind but with patience and

Read More
853 Words | 4 Pages

The struggles presented between these two characters bring to light issues in human relationships that weigh into everyday life. Hemingway’s short story reveals to readers how relationships affect communication, decision

Read More
872 Words | 4 Pages

Their conversation is direct and concise, expressing their character. Hemingway prefers writing dialogues in quotation mark, than using quoting at second hand like “He said that,” even there’s no description of any changes of their attitudes or environment between dialogues. “‘I want to go home to bed’ ‘What is an hour?’ ‘More to me than to him.’ ‘An hour is the same.’

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
663 Words | 3 Pages

The story titled, “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway is about a young American man and a woman, who is waiting at a railway station for a train that will take them to Madrid. They are drinking liquor as they wait and discusses what the American man says will be "a simple operation" for the girl. The man, while urging the girl to have the operation, says again and again that he really doesn 't want her to do it if she really doesn 't want to. However, he clearly is insisting that she do so. The girl is trying to decline to have the operation but the couple keeps arguing.

Read More
202 Words | 1 Pages

While reading The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway gives the reader a very distinct style of writing. Basically, his manner of writing incorporates simplicity with directness, which allows him to speak to the reader with the same elegance with few adjectives as a writer who uses many adjectives. Moreover, Hemingway also seems to be the best at dialog, so much so that the reader often cannot distinguish when each character is talking. Though such characteristics of his style may not be as apparent in some of his works, one: “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” gives an abundant amount of instances where Hemingway’s style bleeds through the page. For example, throughout the short story Hemingway rarely states who is talking, giving lines upon lines

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
1253 Words | 6 Pages

In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway writes about a woman and her struggles with herself and life. As Ernest Hemingway progresses through the story his writing style contributes to a lot of unknowns. Hemingway writes in such a way that he makes everyone really think and analyze the book to fully understand it. As people read through the chapters Hemingway places specific events in such a way that they understand who this woman is. Hemingway begins by telling you about other characters before he mentions Brett to make you aware of the time and lives of the other characters.

Read More
787 Words | 4 Pages

On page 216, Ernest Hemingway writes many more than simply “one true sentence”. Henry’s monologue where he talks about his new view on life and loneliness, we can easily identify a new man. Before this point we see small almost irrelevant changes in behavior. After this deep and thought provoking paragraph, we know Henry has became much more mature man, as Catherine had tried to change, much more isolated man, except from his love of Catherine, and he finds a new view of courage and destruction. He now sees the priest’s wisdom and how right the priest was about love and happiness.

Read More
744 Words | 3 Pages

They begin discussing the old man’s attempt at suicide. The story which seems to start off about the old man really becomes about the fear the old waiter has of becoming like the old man. The importance of the characters, setting, and symbolism of the story all help Hemingway to express the hopelessness and loneliness of the old man and the older waiter. The story’s characters consist of the young waiter who is confident but seems to be a bit naïve about what life is really about.

Read More

More about Hills Like White Elephants Character Analysis Essay

Related Topics

Open Document