When reading any work of fiction, whether it be a short story or a poem, there is an expectation for something to happen or for some deeper meaning or understanding of a problem to become clear by the end of the work. However, in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, there is not a clear picture of anything that actually takes place within the text nor any deeper meaning to be understood from it upon the first reading. Without a clear story line, it becomes necessary to examine how Hemingway creates points of emphasis and importance through his patterns in dialogue. By analyzing the general form in which Hemingway wrote “Hills Like White Elephants” and focusing on the use of communication and dialogue present in the short story, …show more content…
By using a limiting third person point of view that consists mostly of dialogue, Hemingway creates an obstacle as there is no 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 mountain. One of the most notable facets of “Hills Like White Elephants” is the repetition of sentences throughout the short story. With the story running at barely two thousand words, the repetition of these key phrases stands out among the dialogue. The phrase from which the title comes from, “like white elephants”, reoccurs five times within the text. In cultural context, an elephant in the room is an idiom for a burden or an issue at hand that no one wants to discuss. Hemingway takes this metaphor one step further, specifying that the hills are like “white elephants”, which are not only rare and sacred creatures, but also a metaphor in and of themselves to mean a burdensome property that is expensive and difficult to manage. By repeating the phrase and comparing different things to white elephants,