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Who Is The Curtain In 'Hills Like White Elephants'?

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“Hills Like White Elephants” is the short fiction story published in the 1927 collection “Men Without Women” of Ernest Hemingway. He is a famous American author. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, considered one of the great innovators in twentieth century about fiction. Hemingway did very well in using metaphors in his work. This short story contains many characteristic symbols. Behind the significant symbols like the train, two lines of rails or two strings of beads as well as the curtain is all about the relationship between Jig and the American man, two main characters. The story concentrates on the conservation between Jig and the unnamed-American man at the bar near the station where they are waiting for the train to Madrid. Throughout the story, the author doesn’t mention to what the couple’s relationship exactly is, but we know that Jig is having a pregnant with this man. However, he doesn’t want to have the baby and he tries to persuade Jig to have abortion. The conservation is going to be more complicated when both of them have …show more content…

That is the symbol of the bamboo curtain. It is repeated pretty much in the story and described hang across the open door to keep out flies. As usual, the curtain is used covering the window or door to avoid the sun is to shiny as well as people look through your room. Basically, the curtain is to hide, separate, sunder, or divide something. As its meaning, we can easily relate to the situation of this couple. They are divided by the curtain of social, the curtain of the old rules. Looking at the scene of this story which is in 1927 when the education about sex and birth control wasn’t popular. The couples who had unintended pregnancy or had children without married received stigmas from everyone. That is the reason why Jig and the man don’t have many options to solve their problem. Leading to have an opened ending that the author give readers

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The short story "Hills Like White Elephants," is about a couple that is really young and the is having a issue about abortion. The author uses a lot of rhetorical devices to convey his message but mostly use imagery and symbolism. The way that the story is told by the author the reader can see the story told in their head. The way that the author describe the hills and the town that they was in it shows a lot of imagery. The story also picture the couple waiting for the train that they had been waiting for.

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927 Words | 4 Pages

Hills Like White Elephants #1 Describe the setting and discuss its importance to the story. •Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is set in a train station to highlight the fact that the relationship between the American and the girl is at a crossroads. Planted in the middle of a valley, the station isn’t the final destination, but merely a stopping point between Barcelona and Madrid. Night

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739 Words | 3 Pages

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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1554 Words | 7 Pages

The setting (7) of the story, the train station, is a symbol for the place where Jig and the American man are at in their relationship and what lies ahead for them. This symbol also portrays the theme (8) of choice and consequences. They are at an impasse due to the pregnancy, and the train tracks are the futures that could happen based on Jig’s decision about the abortion and the baby. For instance, Jig could agree politely to the American man and go ahead

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813 Words | 4 Pages

The relationship between the American and the girl in “Hills Like White Elephants.” In the 1900s, there was a distinct relationship between a man and a woman, with each having their own traits. During this time, Ernest Hemingway also had his own idea of this relationship which he portrays in his story, “Hills Like White Elephants”. Within this story, the relationship between the two characters, the American and the girl, is portrayed as strained and distanced by their constant avoidance of the “elephant in the room”.

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746 Words | 3 Pages

Outside of the train station there was a beaded curtain, “Close against the side of the station was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep the flies out” (Hemingway line 3-5). The beaded curtain is used as a symbol to show the separation between them and the rest of humanity. The beaded curtain is supposed to represent boundaries. The couple faces many boundaries throughout the short story, these boundaries act as a curtain in the couple’s relationship that limit their options and conversation on the topic of whether to abort their child or not. Bamboo stem was once said to have been what humanity was created from; the couple sat just outside the beaded curtain never passing through

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699 Words | 3 Pages

In Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”, the American and Jig are like parallel lines, they can never meet. As they struggle to find common ground, the very discussion that can bring them together only tears them apart. The relationship between Jig and the American is complex from the very beginning since their personalities, methods of communicating, and desires are different. The American represents infertility, selfishness and death but how can he not be when he’s a single man, traveling, trying new drinks, spending nights in hotels with no worry about money and now he has impregnated a women, of course he will lose his zest for her (Hannum).

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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.

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554 Words | 3 Pages

The isolation around the railroad system suggests that there is no way out of the problem, and they must address it now. Two tracks parallel to one another exemplify that even though the couple is intimate, they are withdrawn from one another. Both Jig and the American have trouble communicating, highlighting the reason they are unable to to connect, and the gap between the two. This is a major theme in the story. Even though they both talk, neither one listens or attempts to understand the other’s point of view.

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1012 Words | 5 Pages

This story symbolizes a couple’s opinion about life. It also symbolizes how people approach different opportunities that come through the course of life. The man clearly wants to live a life that is favored around living care free and traveling. He wants to see and do as much as possible with less responsibilities. Jig, the women in the relationship, is seemingly interested in keeping the child.

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1629 Words | 7 Pages

In the beginning of the story they sit drinking at a table outside a bar, and after a while the woman goes to the end of the station but she soon returns and participates in the dialogue. The man then carries their bags to the other side of the rails before he returns to and goes inside the bar for a drink. As the story ends, the man goes back outside and finishes his dialogue with the woman. The dialogue between the couple tangibly represents the mindset of what has been called The Lost Generation in the “Roaring Twenties”.

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1098 Words | 5 Pages

Which is making him more selfish and he does not to have any responsibilities. Also, the reader is also left with a great doubt, as there is no solution. Jig is a Spanish pregnant girl, and she is about to have an abortion. She seems young because she is depending on a careless man.

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2016 Words | 9 Pages

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

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786 Words | 4 Pages

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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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.

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