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Literary devices in hills like white elephants by ernest hemingway
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” essay
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” essay
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The Life and Work of Ernest Hemmingway Author: Hemmingway, Ernest Works to be analyzed: “Hills Like White Elephants”, “The Sun Also Rises” Ernest Miller Hemmingway was born on July 21, 1899 in what is now called Oak Park, Illinois. According to an article written by John Walsh in The Independent News Paper, Hemmingway’s parents were physically and mentally abusive to him stating that his father, “Clarence Hemingway was a barrel-chested, six-foot bully, a disciplinarian who beat his son with a razor strop” and his mother was controlling and mentally abusive by often dressing him like a girl, “She referred to him, in his cute lacy dress, as "Dutch dolly". (Walsh2011) He also states that “she also praised him for being good at hunting in the woods and fishing in the stream in boys' clothes. It was too confusing for a sensitive kid”. (walsh2011) Walsh believes that this treatment of young Ernest was the cause for a chronic identity crisis. “Henceforth he could be warm and generous or ruthless and overbearing. His friendships were often unstable (he could turn vicious or cruel, even with supposedly close pals) and his relations with women were full of conflict”. (Walsh.2011) So he spent most of his life thrill seeking so as to seem more masculine, and having problems with all relationships throughout the rest of his life. This also shows in his stories, with the characters’ relationships with women always tumultuous, somewhat like his own relationships. In 1918, during World War I, Hemmingway served in the Italian Army as an ambulance driver where he was injured and wound up in a hospital in Milan. There he fell in love with a nurse and became engaged, but then she left him for another man. This devastated him but laid the gr... ... middle of paper ... ...m>. Hemmingway, Ernest Miller. ""Hills Like White Elephants"." mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature-Shorter Eleventh Edition. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. 590-594. Print. Shmoop editorial team. "The Sun Also Rises Summary." shmoop.com.shmoop university,inc. 11 november 2008. Web. 9 May 2014. . Shmoop editorial team. "Hills Like White Elephants Analysis."shmoop.com.shmoop University,inc.. 11 November 2008. Web. 9 May 2014. . A&E Networks Television. "Ernest Miller Hemmingway" ." n.d. biography.com . n.d..Web. 9 May 2014. . Walsh, john. "Being Ernest: John Walsh unravels the mystery behind Hemingway's suicide." The Independent 11 june 2011.Web. 9 May 2014.
A. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Gen. ed. -. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed.
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway is a short story that deals with the idea of conformity and the conflict caused by internal desire and pressure from another party. The short story is very subtle, and often uses these subtleties in combination with incredible amounts of symbolism interlaced throughout the narrative to cause the reader to look and think deeper into the motives, values and convictions of the conflict between the two protagonists respective desires. When two parties are at an impasse of desire, the conviction of their opposing beliefs becomes increasingly unshakeable. This results in dissension due to the severe lack of understanding between the parties involved and furthermore, they refuse to be held responsible for the inability to communicate their feelings to one another.
Elephants'." Studies in Short Fiction. 17.1 (Winter 1980): 75-77. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 75-77. Literature Resource Center. Gale.
Mays, Kelly J. "Hills like White Elephants." The Norton Introduction to Literature. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 788-792. Print.
Hemingway, Ernest. "Hills like White Elephants." Responding to Literature. Ed. Judith Stanford. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 841-44. Print.
“Hills Like White Elephants” is a classical short story first published in 1927 written by Ernest Hemingway, who has been generally recognized as one of the most influential writers in American history of literature. Starting with a lengthy description of the story’s setting in a train station surrounded by hills, fields and trees in the valley of Ebro in Spain, Hemingway told the story from a third person limited omniscient, nearly in an entire form of a dialogue between an unnamed American young man and a girl named Jig while they are sitting at a bar near the train station waiting for the train to Madrid. Throughout Hemingway’s direct and clean report...
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.
The author superbly utilizes symbolism throughout the short story. “Hills like White Elephants” is told in a vague way that holds the reader at bay. Hemingway’s genius use of symbolism helps the reader understand the story. One of the most prevalent uses of symbolism is the term white elephant, which represents “an unwanted gift, a seemingly remote and immense problem,” that the couple are forced to deal with (Kozikowski 107). The white elephant denotes the unwanted unborn child that is resented by the father, although the mother is curious to see through.
One can analyze the story of “Hills Like White Elephants,” in the form of the structuralist perspective by using the system of binary oppositions. Robert DiYanni states in the text “Literature Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama,” that “Structuralist critics find all kinds of opposition in literature, from small scale elements, such as letters and syllables; through symbols, such as light and dark; to motions or directions (up and down)... places (inside and outside)... to elements of plot and character , such as changes of feeling and reversals of fortune” (1583). In addition, Isaiah Smithson’s definition of structuralist criticism supports Robert DiYanni’s statement. He defines it as “A method of analyzing phenomena, as in anthropology, linguistic, psychology, or literature, chiefly characterized by contrasting the elemental structures of the phenomena in a system of binary oppositions” (Smithson 145). Also, one can use Richard Webster’s definiti...
Hills Like White Elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a story that takes place in Spain while a man and woman wait for a train. The story is set up as a dialogue between the two, in which the man is trying to convince the woman to do something she is hesitant in doing. Through out the story, Hemingway uses metaphors to express the characters’ opinions and feelings.
---, "Hills Like White Elephants." The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner?s Sons, 1953. 273-278.
Hemingway uses a unique style of writing to communicate his ideas to the reader. Like most of his works, Hemmingway uses very simple language to build suspense, but he does not explicitly resolve the conflict. The words not said by the characters play a crucial role in describing their conflict. Jig's smiles, or the times Hemingway tells us "The girl did not say anything" suggest that there is a much deeper story in the background. Critics like Hilary Justice have written many in-depth analyses of the meanings of Jig's smiles throughout the story (3). David Wyche devotes half a pa...
In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway uses irony and symbolism to illustrate how a group of Americans and English expatriates lived life. They try to forget the war and restore a sense of meaning to their lives, which he would have liked to do. Hemingway’s attitudes are expressed in the book, including his idea of, “emphasize the optimistic idea of progress of life’s cycle.”
Stukas, Jake. "Literary analysis: Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway." Helium.com. Web. 21 Nov. 2009. .