Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
Hills like White Elephants is a unique story filled with simple yet meaningful dialogue between two lovers in Spain. The entire story can leave the audience with more questions rather than answers when they reach the conclusion. Those who are familiar with Hemmingway and have studied his works have attempted to gain insight and logical conclusions to many of his stories by examining his life. A life that was full of married affairs, alcohol, and hardship. Many of these experiences Hemmingway has faced, have set the foundation for some of his greatest works. This paper will examine the impact that Hemmingway’s first born child, his alcohol addiction and his separation from Pauline had on the popular short story of Hills like White Elephants.
Before writing Hills like White Elephants Hemingway had been married to his first wife Hadley Richardson. In 1921, the couple moved to Paris were two years later Hemingway began to make a name for himself as a writer. Just as this was happening, Hadley became pregnant with their first son Bumby. This forced the couple to move back to the United States due to the medical advancements in the country. Doing so meant putting Hemingway’s new career on hold for three years. In 1924, the couple returned to Paris, where Ernest Hemingway met a woman named Pauline Pfeiffer. At first, Pauline thought very low of Hemmingway, but that quickly changed. She and Hemmingway developed a close friendly relationship, which grew to a closer relationship then Hemmingway had with his wife Hadley. Spending so much time together eventually lead the two into falling in love and having an affair. Hadley, Hemingway’s wife, found out about the affair and Hemingway in response asked for a ...
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...g both relationships could not coexist happily. In my opinion, Hemingway could have implemented these two landscapes to depict his relationship with the two women and the choice he had made. The side with Hadley was old and uninteresting, while Pauline was full of life. In addition, Hemingway wrote Pauline a letter comparing the 100 day separation to an abortion. He goes on to say, “I think when two people love each other and need each other then go away from each other it works almost as bad as an abortion”. With that being said, the separation from Pauline during the 100 day test might have been the spark that gave Hemmingway the idea to differentiate the landscape in Hills like White Elephants. I think it is safe to say that the separation did greatly affect the overall message of the story in a case where a couple is at a crossroads in their relationship.
Hemingway writes his works so that not everything is as it seems. It makes readers take a deeper insight about what he’s writing about. In the story ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ he writes about an operation. Now from the surface, it seems as if they are just going on a trip and when he brings up this operation, readers don’t understand that they are talking about an abortion. The story has to be read a few times, before readers really understand that the argument is about a pregnancy and how the man wants the abortion. This is how Hemingway wanted to write his story. By using his dialogue and symbolism, Hemingway plays everything out in a way that makes readers analyze the story.
Renner, Stanley. "Moving To The Girl's Side Of "Hills Like White Elephants.." Hemingway Review 15.1 (1995): 27-41. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
“Roman Fever” and “Hills Like White Elephants” are two different stories that are both very ambiguous in their own ways. Each has a revelation at the end that ultimately paints the grander picture. Even though, Wharton and Hemingway used two very different styles of writing, one full of small subtle details that all fit together as a big puzzle and the other full of simplicity and straightforwardness, both did create dynamic and mysterious characters that, mixed in with the subtle hints and suggestion of their narrators, ultimately helped the readers see and actually comprehend the revelations of each story.
“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.
“The Love of My Life,” by T.C. Boyle, tells a love story about a teen couple who has to go on separate ways to attend college. Earlier, they go on a camping trip and have unprotected sex. China finds out she is pregnant and tells Jeremy about it. Jeremy tells China to terminate her pregnancy, but China refuses to see a doctor and lets her pregnancy advance. She ends having her baby in a motel room without any medical assistance; just with Jeremy’s help she delivers her baby. The couple decides to dump the baby in a dumpster, and later they get arrested for their crime.
‘Hills Like White Elephants’ is a short story authored by Ernest Hemingway about an American and a girl named Jig. In the story, the two are sitting in a train station waiting for the train to Madrid. While they wait, they have an intense ongoing debate on whether or not to abort Jig. At the end of the story, the train is about to arrive and the man carries luggage on the tracks as they prepare to leave. The end of the story does not clearly define the outcome of its decision. She said I feel good at the end of the story - happiness is a central theme of the story, but we wonder if she went through with the operation. The paper discusses the manner in which symbolism has been employed in the story to communicate about an abortion, the couple is considering to go through.
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...
The story "Hills Like White Elephants" is a conversation between a young woman `Jig' and an American man waiting for a train at a station in Spain. The author never names the topic of their discussion but as their dialogue progresses; it becomes evident that Jig is pregnant. The man wants Jig to abort the unborn child but she is unconvinced and wants to become a mother. Hemingway has brilliantly written the story's dialogue which "captures the feel of a private conversation while at the same time communicating the necessary narrative background" (O'Brien 19). At the end of the story, it is unclear as to what decision has been made; however, Hemingway gives the reader several clues regarding what Jig feels, and what she wants to do. Jig's private thoughts are illuminated by Hemingway's description of the setting, the character, and the conflict. Stanley Renner suggests that, as a result of the couple's discussion, "Jig has become able to make a more clear-sighted estimation, and perhaps a better choice, of men" Wyche(59). The couple's inability to communicate effectively their true thoughts and emotions makes their dialogue very appealing. The story examines the gender differences and miscommunications as they influence the decision whether to abort the unborn child or not (Smiley). In his book on Hemingway, published in 1999, Carl P. Eby points out that "[f]or the past two decades, Hemingway criticism has been dominated by a reconsideration of the role of gender in his work" (Bauer 125).
Earnest Hemingway is one of Americas foremost authors. His many works, their style, themes and parallels to his actual life have been the focus of millions of people as his writing style set him apart from all other authors. Many conclusions and parallels can be derived from Earnest Hemingway's works. In the three stories I review, ?Hills Like White Elephants?, ?Indian Camp? and ?A Clean, Well-lighted Place? we will be covering how Hemingway uses foreigners, the service industry and females as the backbones of these stories. These techniques play such a critical role in the following stories that Hemingway would be unable to move the plot or character development forward without them.
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” is a one-of-a-kind short story. Hemingway clearly felt the need to be straightforward and direct stylistically, a trait that is said to have carried over from his work in journalism . In this story, he decided to use the third person objective point of view, making the plot both thought-provoking and confusing. One might ask, was it really necessary for Hemingway to use such a detached and vague narration? Is the third person objective point of view crucial to the story? The third person objective point of view was absolutely necessary for the story: without it, the story would cave in on itself.
Hemingway, Ernest. "Hills Like White Elephants." Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. Ed. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006. 268-272.
"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. Hemingway led a difficult life full of martial affairs and misfortune. Some of these experiences have set the foundation for Hemingway's greatest works. This essay will analyze the influence that Hemingway's separation from Pauline and divorce from Hadley had on "Hills like White Elephants."
Ernest Hemmingway uses time, place, and symbolism in "Hills like White Elephants" to intensify the central dilemma in a story about a man and a woman deciding on whether to go through with an abortion. Although a literal reading of the title may not seem to have any relation to the story, the title is rich in implications. Critics suggest that "Hills" refers to the shape of a woman's stomach when pregnant, and Webster's 21st Century Dictionary defines white elephant as: "[An] awkward, useless possession." The term is also defined in Webster's as an item that is worthless to some but priceless to others. According to Victor Lindsey, the child in the story is a white elephant in the view of the man, who is trying to convince the girl to get rid of it. Hemingway hints about how the man and the woman each feel about the unborn child, but he never tells us why they have such different views on the prospect of an abortion. The man in the story, referred to as "the American," claims that the abortion is necessary because it would save their relationship, whereas the woman, Jig, has doubts as to whether or not she should have an abortion at all.
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.