Subtlety can either create an amazing story or it can ruin a perfectly fine story. If you are subtle about something it may show that you are uneducated in the category or that you are uninterested in it, and especially in writing it may show that you simply do not know anything about the topic. There can also be a great factor in writing with subtlety because if you use it correctly you can keep your reader wondering what is going to happen next and you can allow him to live out many scenarios to the story in their head. Omission of a conclusion or important details may also lead to the same effects that subtlety does. If you completely omit some details from the text, you may lose your reader but if you omit the correct ones you will have …show more content…
In this particular story Hemingway gives us two main characters, an American man and his girlfriend. These two are sitting in a bar and conversing about their lives and the alcohol that they are drinking. Soon the girl says that the hills appear as if they are white elephants to her and later on she says they no longer look like them. She then states, "They don't really look like white elephants”(Hemingway 230). The man then brings up an operation that he wishes the girl goes through so that everything can be the same between them once again but it seems as if the woman does not want to go through with it, but she then tells us that he will do anything for him to love her again. The man speaks with her and through here he explains that this is what will fix them, "’Then what will we do afterward?’ ‘We'll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.’ ‘What makes you think so?’ ‘That's the only thing that bothers us. It's the only thing that's made us unhappy’"(Hemingway 230)Hemingway never describes any details about what the operation is or what it is for he just tells us that everything will go back to normal after the operation. He leaves us wondering what this operation is and it can be a very powerful thing. At first you may wonder …show more content…
Enigma is a term used to describe something that is puzzling or mysterious. In both previous stories “The Hills Like White Elephants” and “The Cask of Amontillado” there are moments in the story that enigma is used and through this use they puzzle the reader and drag them deeper into the story. Through this use the author can actually connect the reader to the story and it can make a powerful connection because the reader is no longer just reading the story he/she is now connected with the story in an effort to piece together the parts given by the author to make a whole that is able to be reread and understood in a different matter than presented. This strategy of omission, subtly, and enigma causes the reader to reread the text many times to try and understand the main points that the author wished to get across. This causes more engagement with the text, and more active readers reading the
In a well-written short story, different literary elements and terms are incorporated into the story by the author. Ernest Hemingway frequently uses various literary elements in his writing to entice the reader and enhance each piece that he writes. In Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway uses symbols to teach the reader certain things that one may encounter during daily life. Symbolism may be defined as relating to, using, or proceeding by means of symbols (Princeton). The use of symbols in Hills Like White Elephants is utterly important to the plot line and to the fundamental meaning of the story. Through this use of symbolism, the reader can begin to reveal the hidden themes in this short story.
This short story is about a couple arguing about abortion. The girl, Jig, does not want to, but the American man says that it is the only thing between them. The girl wants to continue on with her life of exploring the world with the addition of the baby, but the man says that it would take the world away from them. The man has experience in this, but the woman seems not to. She is reluctant, and does not want to talk about it any more after a point. There are many elements in the story, such as disconnection, manipulation, dominance, innocence, and irresponsibility.
Ernest Hemingway has a superbly unique style of writing in Hills Like White Elephants. His short, to the point syntax and sentence style plays a great role in helping readers understand the theme of this short story. The critique M.A.K. Halliday observed, “The story is frequently generated by the repetition of words, clauses, and groups of related words or ethical sets” (Link, Alex). The first set of dialogue that can be pulled from this story is story is short and to the point. The American states, “We can have the whole world.” Jig replies with “No, we can’t” (Hemingway, Ernest). The sentence length is very short, yet there is a hidden meaning behind the small talk. Jig is referring to not having the baby. She can have everything, but her will to decide things. She can’t have a baby due to unloving pressure from the American. It is in sync with the tone of the story perfectly. The tone is forward, direct, and shallow. That is exactly what happens in this dialogue. There is no emotion, just pure sarcasm on a huge topic. Abortion to this couple is nothing more then a qui...
There is a never ending list of what makes some people amazing story tellers. Some writers have vast imaginations, other writers use the lives of others in their stories and other writers use their lived experiences in order to write moving works of art. Most books, works of poetry and short stories that revolve around lived experiences share a common theme of love, hate or both. As these are emotions that all humans share, However, there are some stories that have far more unique. Stories like “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. Both O’Brien and Hemingway come from two completely separate walks of life but were both able to write stories using the same theme of emotional and physical
What would literature be had every author used the same perspective for every single story? Literature would not be as well received as it currently is received. Take three American short stories, “Hills Like White Elephants,” “A Rose for Emily,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” for example. These stories, by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Gilman respectively, each utilize a different a point of view. The perspective of a story heavily influences the impact of the story on a reader and that impact varies based on the content of the story.
The material objects that Hemingway uses to convey the theme are beer, the good and bad hillsides, and a railroad station between two tracks. The beer represents the couple’s, “the American” and “the girl’s”, usual routine activity they do together. This bothers the girl because “that’s all [they] do … look at things and try new drinks.” This shows that the girl is tired of doing the same thing and wants to do something different, like having a baby and a family, instead of fooling around all the time. She wants to stop being a girl and become a woman. Hemingway then presents the reader with two contrasting hills. One hill on one side of the station is dull, desolate, and barren; “it had no shade and no trees”, very desert like. However, the other hill on the other side of the station is beautiful, plentiful in nature, and had “fields of grain and tress along the banks of the Ebro River.” Also on each side of the station where each hill is, there is a train track. These objects are symbolic devices prepare the reader in realizing that the characters are in a place of decision. The railroad station is a place of decision where one must decide to go one way or the other. The t...
Hemingway, considered to be a modernist writer, makes his readers work by implementing the well-known theory of omission, which “Hills Like White Elephants” is a perfect example of. As he stated in Death in the Afternoon : ‘If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, […].’ (259). It seems that Hemingway assumed the reader would know what is being omitted, nevertheless many features of “Hills Like White Elephants” have already been covered by various critics. At the end of the story the reader is forced to unravel the most...
"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway, is a great example of women's role in the last century. The story is told in a simple form of dialogue between a man and a young woman nicknamed Jig. Although there is an important decision to be made, nothing of much importance is talked about. In the story, Jig does not have much influence in her relationship with the man, even when it comes to an abortion.
Swaying trees in the distance, blue skies and birds chirping, all of these are examples of setting. Setting can create the mood and tone of characters in a story. In the story Hills Like White Elephants, the story starts out with our two characters, Jig and the American, also referred to as the man, on a train overlooking mountains. “The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry” (Hemingway). In the case of this short story, the hills provided Jig something to take her mind off of the grueling conversation she was having with the Man. As said by a critic, “the story itself is comprised almost entirely of dialogue. Although there is a situation, there is no plot” (Henningfield). This characteristic makes the story harder to identify. As the couple reached the station they sat down on a bench and continued to talk. “The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station, looking at fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro” (Hemingway). The location of setting plays a big role in how the characters wi...
“Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is about a couple, the American and Jig, who contemplate whether or not to have an abortion. The premise of the story seems simple enough, but the outcome is highly debated. Critics argue that the baby was kept by the couple ( Renner ) and others claim the baby was aborted.( Fletcher ) Others have even simplified the story, claiming that the issue was not resolved because the couple was drunk by the end of the story. ( Sipiora ) Although the conclusion is in questions many have agreed with the idea that the couples relationship would be changed and would end prematurely. ( Wyche ) Dialogue is the main technique in conveying this argument but we can only understand the complexity of Hemingway’s work by looking at the story as a whole. By looking at the many symbols, intrinsically and
“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 is an incredible writer, known for what he leaves out of stories not for what he tells. His main emphasis in Hills Like White Elephants seems to be symbolism. Symbolism is the art or practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representations (merriam-webster.com). He uses this technique to emphasize the importance of ideas, once again suggesting that he leaves out the important details of the story by symbolizing their meaning.
Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" touches on an issue as ageless as time: communication problems in a relationship. He tells his story through conversations between the two main characters, the American and the girl. Conflict is created through dialogue as these characters face what most readers believe to be the obstacle of an unexpected pregnancy. Their plight is further complicated by their inability to convey their differing opinions to each other. Symbolism and the title's meaning are other effective means of communicating conflict.
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 symbolism of their surroundings. Upon examination of the setting, the couple's final choice becomes instantly apparent.
Why does mankind give up things they truly desire for someone else? In Ernest Hemingway’s fictional short story “Hills like White Elephants” he demonstrates this through his theme of regret. The story occurs in northern Spain at a junction station for the train in the valley of the Ebro River. An American man and a young girl named Jig walk up to the junction station and sit on the porch. As they sit in wait for the train to arrive, the two order beer and a foreign alcoholic beverage while having a conversation with one another. Their conversation begins with Jig claiming that “...the hills look like white elephants.” (Hemingway p.475). The American man then brings up an operation that Jig is expected to have. He tells her that she will be