Hills Like White Elephants

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.

Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" relies on symbolism to carry the theme of either choosing to live selfishly and dealing with the results, or choosing a more difficult and selfless path and reveling in the rewards. The symbolic materials and the symbolic characters aid the reader's understanding of the subtle theme of this story. The hills symbolize two different decisions that the pregnant girl in our story is faced with. Both hills are completely opposite of each other, and each "hill" or decision has a consequence that is just as different as the appearance of the hills.

In this article, East Carolina University English professor Dr. Margaret Bauer makes the claim that one cannot solely rely on the reputation on the writer in order to fully comprehend the meaning of a certain text. This is the precisely the case with Ernest Hemingway as he was well-known to scholars to have his short stories filled with male-chauvinist characters either abusing or disregarding weak and helpless women. However, Bauer, a professor of English and women’s studies, believes that the characterization of Hemingway as an abuser and having a blatant disregard of women is almost entirely created by the scholars and readers of his stories. With an analysis of Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” and “Hills Like White Elephants”, Bauer attempts to bring her own feminist perspective to Hemingway’s notoriously misogynistic texts to prove that there are more to his female characters than there is on the surface and to possibly emasculate his reputation of portraying women as powerless and one-dimensional characters.

Research statement: I am studying Ernest Hemingway’s use of implicative expression in the short story “Hill like white elephants” because I want to find out how to use metaphor

Authors may use this item to tell the story with different items and by using symbolism many

Hemingway uses many instances of symbolism in this short story to coincide with the themes and feelings of the characters, such as the description of the scenery surrounding the train station. On one side of the station there is vegetation and fields of grain, while the other side is dry and barren (Short Stories for Students 159). The fact that the station divides these contrasts of environments is a symbol for the couple’s decision. The choice to have the abortion symbolizes sterility, which coincides with

Ernest Hemingway, the author of “Hills like White Elephants” will leave his readers guessing due to his vague information put into his short story, ¨Hills like White Elephants¨. The understanding of figurative language, sensory details, and the use inferencing skills are needed to interpret what the author is trying to get across. If the short story is analyzed carefully the reader will understand that the couple in the story are deciding whether or not to have an abortion. Although “abortion” is never blatantly said it is shown through prolific figurative language. Symbolism, simile, and conflict are all prominent examples of figurative language throughout Hemingway's “Hills like White Elephant”.

We are all too familiar with the components of a classic, romantic bestseller. Boy and girl meet, boy sweeps girl off her feet, and they both ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after; a tale as old as time. However, this isn’t a realistic portrayal of love. Real love is messy, complicated, and even unfair at times. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” (1927) offers a more accurate portrayal of romantic functionality that is still applicable today as it was back then. Written in the pre-feminist movement of the 1970s, these authors have provided a rich base of female suppression under weight of the male counterparts in play. While we explore the depths of this story, and utilizing this theme as our base, we are able to identify the similarities of powerlessness and vulnerability of the women, the stubbornness and selfishness of the men, symbolism, and setting, and the contrasts such as the rhetorical style and endings in both stories as well.

The negative connotation of a white elephant is expressed in this explanation. It is this negative meaning that is describing the hills, or her pregnant stomach and the unborn child. Further on in their conversation regarding the decision to be made, Jig says to the man, “I know. But if I do it then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants and you’ll like it?” (Hemingway). The girl deliberately asks the man whether the decision of aborting the child will better their lives, or continue moving them down the path of unhappiness. The decision that Jig is faced with ties back to the main theme that Hemingway portrays throughout the short story, decision and indecision. The constant uncertainty that is revealed through the girl’s character is seen in other instances as well.

The main symbol in this story is not hard to find, since it is right in the title. All throughout the story we can see these so called “white elephants” being referenced. Although the reference to white elephants may seem like just a thought coming from Jig, it really symbolizes something big in the story. In some cultures, people view white elephants as an unwanted thing, or an uncomfortable subject. Hemingway relates these white elephants to the unwanted conversation about Jig’s abortion. At first glance, readers may not know what these two characters are talking about, but later in the story we can get a better idea of what they are talking about.

What is the use of symbolism in writing? Is it merely to confuse the reader or is its true intent to make the reader think about the meaning of the story? A symbol is a person, object, or event that suggests more than its literal meaning (Meyer 220). In Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants," Hemingway uses a plethora of symbols to convey the idea that the young girl, Jig is ambivalent to having an abortion and that her older American boyfriend does not want to have the baby. Although the word abortion is never used in the story, the reader understands the concept through Hemingway's symbolism.

One of the many themes in his stories for which Ernest Heming way is known, includes feminism. At Hemingway’s time feminism was known as a famous movement and it affected many important writers like Octavia Butler and Virginia Woolf. Hemingway was a literary icon of his time and he was influenced by the political, social and human rights movements of his time. He was also touched by the hopelessness of women and how their thinking and decision making is manipulated by the dominant male class. His story “Hills Like White Elephants” focuses on a situation which he apparently noticed during his trip of Spain; he overheard a couple discussing the abortion and risks included in this.

“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.

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.