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Of Abortion In Ernest Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants'

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Abortion: to be or not to be? ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway in May 1927. It was published in Transition Magazine in August 1927. The story is situated in Spain, more specific in the bar of the train station, according to some sources the location is Casestas. A girl, named Jig, and a boy (the American) are waiting for the train, as regular people they are having a discussion. On first sight there is nothing special to notice, it is just a normal conversation between two grown ups. But whatever the reader does not notice during the first reading session is that in every word Hemingway uses, there lies a deeper meaning behind it. With less than enough words Hemingway gives us a bright look on how two young people discuss abortion. There are a lot of indications which point into the direction of the subject ‘abortion’. But what every reader has in mind is: ‘Will the girl commit abortion?’. Difficult to say …show more content…

She is afraid of loosing him and is considering to get the child removed. Maybe this is why she blames the American at the beginning of the story for doing this to her. ‘You started it.’ (252). She does not want to be the only one who is responsible for their mistake. The child can be connected to the white elephants. The white elephants are seen as a symbol for something unexpected and unwanted, but also as a great gift. However, she already made a bond with the unborn child. ‘They’re lovely hills, she said. They don’t really look like white elephants.’ (252). The girl accepted the fact that she is pregnant and is searching for a solution, the only solution she can think of is abortion. In my opinion the girl will keep the baby because of her growing motherly instinct. Also the fact that she keeps thinking about it makes it more

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She recognizes that her own mother regretted giving birth to her, “It saddened her to have given birth to such an item as myself,” (263). The unsettling implication that a woman has given birth to an object, rather than a living, breathing, human being, is made tragic upon realizing that the protagonist views this as fair judgement and in turn she not only accepts this truth as her own but she agrees with it, “I was a thing,” (265). The narrator’s sympathizing view of this cruel impression helps guide the reader in understanding how damaging this type of isolation is to the incapacitated. The isolation resulted in the protagonist genuinely believing that she has no place in society and instead of fighting against the majority she simply took their verisimilitude and made it her

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In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, there is a relationship unfolding, a complex relationship difficult to understand. The relationship is revealed by a conversation between a man and a woman, a topic of conversation that people rarely discussed in the period that the story was set. After researching interpretations, it is consistently said “She is pregnant, and he wants her to have an abortion” (Weeks 76), to which I agree that this conversation is about abortion. With the man seemingly pushing the topic and the girl hesitant and questionable, it is unsure as to the result of their conversation. However, it is my belief that she chose to follow her heart and not get the abortion.

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Lane Jr. who's struggling with his faith will support and stand by Sheri and her decision concerning the pregnancy. Ernest Hemingway's" Hills Like White Elephants” allows his readers to come to the conclusion as to whether the couple in question will terminate or keep the unborn child. As Jig, and the American are

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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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In the story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, Jig turns to religion when making a life changing decision. Jig, a women, and an American man are at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid. The women compares the hills nearby to white elephants, a symbol of overcoming obstacles and connected to fertility and knowledge. In document d, Jig is believed to be making a decision on whether to have an abortion or not.

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By definition a “White Elephant” in literature is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness. In the following short story, the situation that the couple is in can be described as a “White Elephant”. Throughout the story a couple, a Spanish woman and an American man, are sitting at a train station waiting for their train. While there, they decide to talk about the issue at hand, a pregnancy. Jig, the Spanish woman, is eager to keep the unborn child as the American man who is the father is not.

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In today’s society, abortion is a controversial topic. Many people dispute if it is moral to eliminate the potential of the unborn fetus or if it is fair to force the parent to keep and raise the baby if the parent isn’t ready. In Sallie Tisdale’s We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Story, the author uses imagery and internal conflict to recreate her experiences as a nurse employed at an abortion hospital. She does this to make her audience understand her and the people who work in abortion hospitals’ perspective.

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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

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She is being easily swayed by the man who is making her think that the baby is “the only thing that is bothering [them and] it’s the only thing that’s made [them] unhappy” (212). The “love” she has for him seems real to her at first but soon she realizes it is not even true because she does not really mean anything to him and the baby she is carrying does not make him happy at all since he is going through so much just to get rid of it. She is presented with this realization when she says, “but if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it” and to that he replies, “I’ll love it. I love it now but I just can’t think about it.

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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.

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1098 Words | 5 Pages

Hills Like White Elephant is a short story by Earnest Hemingway from 1927. The story is talking about a failing relationship between an American man and his girlfriend. This couple is at a critical point on their lives. At the bar in a train station in Spain, the girl, Jig, does not want to end up her pregnancy, but she is going to sacrifice the baby to satisfied him. Because he is critical of the exploitation of his girl’s feelings concerning the continuation of unbalanced relationship.

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Symbolism plays a fundamental role in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”. The different symbols used throughout the story are capable of subtly conveying intricate concepts to the readers of this recognized literary work. It then becomes essential for them to detect all these symbols, and discern the deep meanings which they hold in order to truly grasp the story’s message which the author intended to transmit. Without this insight, many first-time readers may view the story as a simple and casual dialog between two people, a man and a woman, waiting for a train from Barcelona to Madrid. Thus, they become unaware of the intense conflict the two main characters are actually facing, haunted by the difficult decision of terminating a pregnancy

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During the course of the story “Hills Like White Elephants” the author Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism to describe the the main idea of the girl having the “operation.” Hemingway uses the landscape, the white elephant, and the term “elephant in the room” to represent different aspects of the pregnancy and abortion. The landscape in the story represents choosing the abortion or choosing to keep the baby. The setting of the story is at a train station.

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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.

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