Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

872 Words2 Pages

Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

“Which line of criticism best suits this short story?

Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ is suited to a

Psychoanalytic perspective criticism and is the most effective, as it

contains hidden, deeper meanings which the author had represented in

this piece, by explicating the text to explore the themes of choices,

plot, setting and imagery, and essentially abortion.

Psychoanalytic criticism expresses the secret unconscious desires and

anxieties of the author. This particular thought of criticism is

associated with looking for evidence of psychological conflicts,

guilts, ambivalences, which undoubtedly is overflowing in this

particular piece. The couple in this short-story have to deal with the

conflict of ambivalence, for it is anti-climatic in terms that

throughout the piece, there is conflict of ambivalence, the undecided

minds of these two people of whether or not to abort their unborn

child. Firstly, the whole first paragraph alone immediately is filled

with themes to the consciousness mind of the reader. ‘The hills

across…were long and white’ establishes an abortion theme and plot,

and is not just hills that are long and white’; hills are shaped like

bumps which suggests the image of a womb. The title of the story

‘Hill’s like White Elephants’ makes its stand on the theme of abortion

– as a white elephant is associated with something helpless and

useless – like a foetus inside a mother’s womb. Therefore, the title

already established to the reader (before reading the text) that there

is a complex meaning to this story, thanks to a psychoanalytic

viewpoint. The fact...

... middle of paper ...

... quickly butter her up to make a quick decision, especially before the

train arrives, before they press ahead to the next step of their

journey through life.

It is apparent that Psychoanalytic criticism is, nonetheless, the best

method of criticism for this particular piece. Although Hemingway was

commonly known as a New Critic author, one cannot understand the piece

by reading it literally (as a new critic would methodise) without

fully understanding and retrieving the hidden meaning of what he

really wanted us to tell us in the text. Sharp use of imagery acting

as background effects to the plot and theme of abortion weaved into a

setting of crossroads of life (different directions of journey through

life) help bring the fuller meaning of the story and the author’s

intention, which is finally sought by the reader.

Symbolism in Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway
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Hemingway provides the reader with insight into this story, before it is even read, through the title. The girl in the story mentions the hills that can be seen from the train station and describes them as looking like white elephants. Jig is at a crossroads in her life, accompanied by her partner. She is pregnant and cannot decide whether to choose life for the baby, or to get an abortion. Throughout the story, she experiences persistent uncertainty over what she wants to do with her life. Whatever decision she makes will have a drastic impact in her later years as a woman. While seated at the bar inside the train station, the girl says, “The hills look like white elephants” (Hemingway). The hills that are spotted in the distance directly parallel the decision that Jig must make. Critic Kenneth Johnston was recorded stating, “A white elephant is a rare pale-gray variety of an Asian elephant held sacred by the Burmese and Siamese. The girl’s reverence for life is captured by this meaning of the phrase.” Johnston also says, “A white ...
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In Hemingway’s realistic story, “Hills like white elephants” an idea about the plot is given from the author. He states that the couple waits at a train station for the next express train to come by and take off to their next destination, Madrid. While they wait, they go to a nearby bar to have a few drinks and talk among themselves. In this setting the author shows how the woman seems to be focused at the lines of the hills. He describes the hills to appear white in the sun, and the view to be brown and dry. This proves how Jig imagines the hills to appears as white elephants. “They look like white elephants” (Jig line 20). Hemingway makes the reader believe that white elephants symbolize something big and noticeable. In this case, white elephants are used as the big meaning behind the pregnancy.
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Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

Symbolism in Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway

Night by Elie Wiesel

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

"Hills like White Elelphants" Jig's desires