Hills Like White Elephants: A Literary Analysis

Hills like White Elephants is a typical short story by Ernest Hemingway bordering around the themes of sadness and bewilderment. The Yellow Wallpaper, on the other hand, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is classified in the genre of American feminist literature, which is also considered to come under gothic fiction due to its gothic settings. Under different genres, the use of symbolism in the settings greatly contributes to the theme, characterization and the tone of the story.

In Hills like White Elephants, Hemingway vaguely points to the controversial subject of abortion. Though the word is not at all stated in the story but the major subject of the story is abortion. In The Yellow Wallpaper, which was written in 1892, centers around

Jig doesn’t want to abort her baby unlike the American who is her partner. Thus, the settings: the distant hills have utmost symbolic importance in the story. Jig compares the hills to the white elephant, because to her, the unborn baby is a priceless possession like white elephants whereas to the American, the unborn baby stands for the white elephants since he has to spend more amount of money on the baby. Thus while Jig doesn’t wish for abortion, the American supports it. The hills represent the enlarged abdomen and the body of a pregnant woman. The railway track has barren hills on one border and fertile land on the other border. “The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry” (132). The fertile land symbolizes the fertility of a woman which is represented by Jig while the barren hills compared to white elephants, symbolize the infertility or abortion which is represented by the

The tone and characterization of the story is determined by the settings. The story is set in a modern railway station and gives a touch of modernity to the story which makes the story capable of covering the contemporary subject of abortion.

The Yellow Wallpaper takes us to an entirely different era in terms of settings which is set in the Gothic world. During that era women were subjected to classify as lunatics and were confined in a room by the physicians. The protagonist of the story is also one such desperate woman who is held within the four walls of a disgusting room by her physician husband. The suffocation experienced by the protagonist is the major theme of the story.

In this story, the settings play a major role. The room with the yellow wallpaper is even personalized as a feminine character in the story. The woman within the wall represents the creative imagination of the protagonist which has been locked in chains by the patriarchal society. Thus the room is the major character in the story, since the entire story takes place inside the room. For the protagonist, the yellow wallpaper is “dull yet lurid orange in some places, yet sulphur tint in others” (61). The yellow wall paper represents protagonist’s freedom and creativity. The entire tone of the story is dull like the yellow wallpaper and the characters are also without any active inclination to life. The protagonist has