A War Waging Within
In the writing of a short story, especially regarding Ernest Hemingway’s writings, every word has meaning and purpose, creating a world inside a world deep beneath what the eye can see. Taking the story, Hills Like White Elephants, symbolism is used to thread this deep meaning from beginning to end, painting a grand image of the war within human nature in the midst of life altering decisions. Although it is a short story, the vastness of unseen truths is imminent. Through this window, the reader observes and is given the freedom to discern by his rationality the message of each symbol and the poetic tone the writer is aiming to speak to his audience with. To begin, the reader is confronted with an undistinguishable simile of hills that compare to white elephants. Taking the idea of a hill literally, it could very well refer to girl’s pregnancy and the obvious physical effects it gives to the midsection. The idea of an elephant, particularly being white, arises many
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The imagery he gives is vivid and colorful. The writer states: "The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side, there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun” (1). This image animates the war within each character’s human nature and frankly the deceit that runs throughout. The dry landscape is a representation of life being stolen, and the piercing sun which is never biased or selective, bringing everything into to clear sight. She innately knows that unquenchable pain will accompany the killing of the innocent life which no money or dreamy vacation will substitute. Whereas the American believes that change is inviting a lifeless existence such as the dry plains. He says he loves her, but as the reader interprets, he isn’t willing to jeopardize his social status for this unwanted accessory some call a precious
Stated in the title and repeatedly mentioned throughout the story, the hills looking white elephants is an important symbol. This symbol is mentioned in the first line, “The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white.” The color, being an important indicator of its meaning, as stated by Abdoo is similar to that of a still born child (Abdoo 239). This observation after knowing what the conflict is gives us direction from the first line. Lewis E. Weeks uses the image of the hills to embody the image of a pregnant woman lying on their back (Lewis) This is
He uses the symbolism in a way that makes you have to think about what they stand for in terms of what the couple is going through. The short story, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, is all about how selfish the man is. The couple are not compatible together and throughout the story you can start to see that. This is through symbolism and the dialogue that is in the story. The way the dialogue is placed, helps Hemingway’s idea for the story a lot by having the woman silent the whole time that they are “discussing” the operation. During that time period, it wasn’t normal to get an abortion, but during the short story, it is made to seem like it was a very normal thing. The beaded curtain, alcohol, and the two sides of the valley, are just some of the symbolism used in the short story to tell what the couple views as individuals. While analyzing the dialogue, readers can tell that even though the woman is silent she still wants to keep the child and the man does
The symbolism in “Hills Like White Elephants” is very exclusive, but effective. Throughout the story, the hills are said to appear like white elephants, though only in color. The white elephant was a very rare and precious gift, but it was also very costly and could not be used as a beast of burden or killed (Weeks 77). So then we know that something is either seen as precious or as a very costly annoyance. This story starts out with a man and a girl having a conversation while waiting at a train station. The couple is enjoying drinks at a bar and the girl is talking about how the hills look like white elephants, although only in their color. The man seems to ignore her, since he has other things on his mind. The man then tells her it is “An awfully simple operation… It’s just to let the air in (Mays 790).” We now know what the white elephant is a symbol for, a child. The man wants...
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 ...
In conclusion, the short story ‘Hills like White Elephants’ contains symbolism to a high degree. The most important of all symbolism is perhaps the "white elephant". As we all know, a white elephant is a gift that nobody wants. To correlate this to the story, the white elephant is the baby who wants to abort template hesitant.
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
In the story, "Hills like White Elephants" the couple has to make a decision. Throughout the story one can gather a sense of nervousness and disappointment. In the first paragraph the setting introduces the tense atmosphere that will continue through the entire story. The couple is in limbo abou...
Renner, Stanley "Moving to the Girl's Side of `Hills Like White Elephants'." The Hemingway Review, 15 (1) (Fall 1995): 27-41. As Rpt. in Wyche, David "Letting the Air into a Relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in `Hills Like White Elephants'. The Hemingway Review, 22 (1) (Fall 2002): 56-71. EBSCOhost.
This short story is filled with symbolism, some of which the reader may never find. The title itself can be analyzed a lot deeper. The “hills” refers to the shape of the female body during pregnancy and the “white elephants” symbolize a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit (merriam-webster.com). The story is about a man and a woman taking a train to get an abortion. The train is supposed to show change and movement, something this couple appears to need because their life is very routine.
In “Hills Like White Elephants” Ernest Hemingway relies on symbolism to convey the theme of abortion. The symbolic material objects, as well as the strong symbolic characters, aid the reader’s understanding of the underlying theme.
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...
Hemingway's Personal Life and its Influence on his Short Story "Hills Like White Elephants" "Hills like White Elephants" is not the normal story where you have a beginning, middle and end. Hemingway gave just enough information so that readers could draw their own conclusions. The entire story encompasses a conversation between two lovers and leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Ernest Hemingway was a brilliant writer. People that study Hemingway's works try to gain insight and draw natural conclusions about Hemingway and his life.
Hills Like White Elephants displays the differences in the way a man and a woman view pregnancy and abortion. The woman looks at pregnancy as a beautiful aspect of life. In the story the woman’s pregnancy is implied through their conversation. She refers to the near by hills as elephants; "They look like white elephants" (464). She is comparing the hills to her own situation, pregnancy. "They’re lovely hills. They really don’t look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees" (465). Just as the hills have their distinct beauty to her, she views pregnancy in the same fashion making the reference to the hills having skin—an enlarged mound forming off of what was once flat. The man views pregnancy just the opposite. When the girl is talking about the white elephants and agrees that the man has never seen one, his response is, "I might have, just because you say I haven’t doesn’t prove anything" (464). This shows the defensive nature of the man, and when the woman implies the he is unable to differentiate between what is beautiful and what is not.
In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, the author employs the use of the iceberg theory to convey a hidden message within the lines of the story for the reader. Through the use of strictly dialogue, Hemingway allows the reader to only see the part of the iceberg that is above water. The rest of the story is inferred by the reader. For example, Hemingway uses simple sentences rather than complex sentences to get straight to the point. All of Hemingway’s use of detail and explanations of scenery or background is made simple.
Secondly, Ernest Hemingway illustrates the other side of the train station to represent life. “Across on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro” (402). Literally, the fields of the grain and trees represent fertility and fruitfulness because a field without crops represents infertility. However, symbolically, the fertile land symbolizes Jig’s current pregnant state, life in Jig’s womb.