Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story about a man and woman who are faced with a difficult choice to make. The story has no internal monologue or deep explanations to express the characters thoughts, feelings and motives. Hemingway instead, uses symbols throughout his story to express the deeper meaning behind the American man and the girl’s conflicting decision.
“Hills Like White Elephants”, by Ernest Hemingway, is a short story published in 1927 that takes place in a train station in Spain with a man and a woman discussing an operation. Most of the story is simply dialogue between the two characters, the American and Jig. This couple is at a critical point in their lives when they must decide whether or not to have an abortion. Certain themes arise from this story such as choices and consequences, doubt and ambiguity, and how men and women relate. Hemingway also uses many examples of symbolism in “Hills Like White Elephants”, including descriptions of the surrounding scenery, the hills themselves, and the station where the action takes place.
In Ernest Hemingway's “Hills Like White Elephants”, the use of imagery and symbolism in the landscape of surrounding Ebro Valley, as well as the use of language and tone, shape our understanding of the conflict between the two main characters. The man referred to only by “The American”, is trying to convince Jig to get an abortion. Though the word (abortion) is never stated directly in the entirety of the story, it is conveyed by the use of symbolism and imagery in the surrounding landscape. Furthermore, we can conclude that the topic at hand will come to a final and abrupt solution that Jig will, in fact, get the abortion due to her tone and language at the end of the story.
“Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story published in 1927 and written by Ernest Hemingway taken place in a Spanish train station near the Ebro River symbolizing the couple at crossroads. The train station lies on two different roads just like The American and Jig, one side of the train is fertile while the other is dry and sterile. The American and Jig are in a journey to make a decision that can change their lifestyle, abortion. However, instead of having a serious conversation about a life changing commitment, The American utilizes alcohol as a distraction to change the conversation. As a result, Jig faces a difficult situation and decides to take a different road, literally and emotionally, than that of the American. Jig encounters herself in a moment where her lover does not agree with her keeping their unborn child and tries persuading her to abort. The reader can see that Jig is going along with the abortion because
Ernest Hemingway was an American author and journalist. One of his most famous and controversial pieces “Hills Like White Elephants” is frequently discussed among authors and readers. In this short story there is a girl and a American man sitting at a train station. The girls name is Jig, we come to find out that she is pregnant and that the two are disusing whether to keep the baby or not. They question each other to see if the options would ruin their relationship. Hemingway portrays things to serve as double meanings. Two of the main subtopics and questions formed from this paper is whether or not Jig has the baby. And whether of not the tense relationship between the two lasts. Among the many authors who have their own opinion on what these things mean is, timothy Obrien, who wrote, “Allusion, Word Play, and the Central Conflict in Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants”. In his paper he focuses on certain phrases to conclude his belief that Jig does get and abortion and that the relationship between Jig and the American does not last. A professor at Illinois state university by the name of Stanley Renner, author of “Moving to the Girls Side of “Hills Like White Elephants””, does not think the relationship lasts. Although the relationship does not last he believes that the baby does. David Wyche, author of “Letting the Air Into a Relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in “Hills Like White Elephants””, he is not
Hills Like White Elephants, is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway about a couple on a train talking about a procedure, which has been understood as an abortion. The words used in this short story paints vivid picture of the situation and the people involved.
The text “Letting the air into a relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in ‘Hills Like White Elephants” by Wyche David aims at analyzing and synthesizing the short story by Hemingway “Hills like White”. The analysis would provide new knowledge to readers of the short story or provide the readers with a new point of view of analyzing it. The subject of the text is to present his ideas on the short story and well as critique other critics who had previously critiqued it. The story illustrates broken relationships of Hemingway and the pain it caused him, which led him to write the short story. The whole text is therefore an analysis and synthesis of the short story written by Hemingway.
The short story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, is about a man trying to convince his girlfriend to have an abortion. The couple sits in a train station waiting for their trip to Barcelona, and are staring outside at the scenery—the line of hills “like white elephants”, as the girl, Jig, remarks. They sit and drink and they try to keep conversation light and to enjoy themselves. As the story progresses, however, cause for their underlying tenseness boils to the surface.
In the short story by Ernest Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants," a couple is delayed at a train station en route to Madrid and is observed in conflict over the girl's impending abortion. In his writing, Hemingway does not offer any commentary through a specific character's point of view, nor, in the storytelling, does he offer his explicit opinions on how to feel or think about the issues that emerge. The narrative seems to be purely objective, somewhat like a newspaper or journal article, and in true Hemingway form the story ends abruptly, without the couple's conflict clearly being resolved. The ambiguity of the ending has been a subject of much debate; however, the impact of what is not said in words can be gleaned through the
In the short story "Hills like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway we were presented a man and his girlfriend. They order a couple drinks as they wait for a train. As the story continues, more details of what the couple is discussing unfold. Although it is never actually said we learn that the couple is talking about whether to have an abortion. "It's really an awful simple operation, Jig."(42) It's is also
The short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, talk about a young couple and their relationship issue about abortion. Even though, the story happened in a short period of time, but it tells more than just a story. The woman named Jig, where the man only called as “ a man” or “ The American.” Although the relationship between them is complicated, but it is clearly that they are not married. However, they continued their relationship which came to result that Jig became pregnant. The couple love to travel and stop in many differents cities before moving on to the next. Their last stop was somewhere in Spain and that was the place where they had to make decisions either they continue their relationship with the child or
“Hills Like White Elephants” tells a story of a man and woman sitting at station waiting on a train to take them to Madrid. The story is told from the narrator’s point of view. There are two main characters. The man is referred to as the American and the woman is called Jig. The man is the antagonist and the protagonist is Jig. The story is more about Jig and her current situation. There is very little information given about the characters but the reader is told that Jig is going to Madrid to have an operation but only hints about the type of operation. The reader is led to believe Jig is going to have an abortion. In the short story “Hills like White Elephants”, the author Ernest Hemingway portrays “Jig”, the protagonist as a mixture
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” was written before the 1950s and takes place at a train station in Spain. The definition of a white elephant is a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of. In the story the main character Jig is pregnant by the other main character the American. The American tries to persuade Jig to have an abortion, but Jig’s feelings are very conflicted. Hemingway uses theme, setting, persuasive writing, and verbal irony in the story, which all contribute to shaping different moods.
“The Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story that is about an American man and a girl called Jig. They are sitting at a table outside a train station, waiting for a train to Madrid. While they wait they order drinks and have a heated ongoing conversation over whether or not Jig will have an operation that would be of great significance to their relationship. “The Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway has two important symbols in the story, the hills and the drinks both of which help to give us a better understanding of what is going on between the American and his girl.
Relationships can be difficult when two people have an opposing stance on a controversial topic such as abortion. Men, in their self-interest, perceive this option as an easy way out, in which they can have all the pleasure and none of the consequences. However, for a woman an abortion causes both physical and emotional pain which a man could never understand. Thus, making this one of the utmost difficult issues a girl may need to face in her life. In Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” there are two Americans traveling in Spain. The setting of the scene is a bar located near the train station where the man and the girl discuss this life altering operation, as they await the arrival of the train to Madrid. Throughout the story the man is persuasive, as he attempts to convince the girl to have the operation, while at the same time, the girl expresses her reluctance and remains unconvinced that an abortion is the answer to their problems. Abortion remains as controversial today as it was when Ernest Hemingway wrote “Hills Like White Elephants”. Although Hemingway never used the word abortion in his story, he found ways to evoke emotions of sympathy for the girl and disdain for the man through his creative use of symbolism, setting, and characters in the short story.