Literary Use of Space in a Short Story

¶ … Hills like white elephants," Ernest Hemingway make use of a literary style that focuses on the appreciation the natural world by relating it to real life incidents. Space is often a literary mechanism used by many writers, and is often very symbolic in nature. Based on that assumption, this paper will first briefly provide an overview of the story follow by an analysis of the symbolic representations of space. This relationship will be illustrated by the usage of space in regards to the symbolic nature of an individual female's biological internal, self-struggle as opposed to her ACTUALLY consciously wanting to bear a child.

The genre of this reading would be that of a short story, with the setting being in a train station with a train that has a destination in Madrid. When reading the story, the narrative point-of-view remains a mystery as it becomes highly evident early on that the story takes on the form of a dialogue. There seems to be a demonstration of modernity since the author does not directly make it clear who the narrator is. Thus, it is left up to the readers to posit meaning. The dialogue takes place between a man and a woman as they are in the bar (waiting area) enjoying refreshments. There seems to be a high use of formulism from the woman as she is enjoying the aesthetics of the natural beauty surrounding her. In fact, we can see Ernest Hemingway's use of mode and style, as he highly develops technical aspects of the environment that include an appreciation of natural. From the perspective of the reader, the usage of this literary style allows them to partake in a pleasure filled stroll through his vivid style of words and imagery. For example, as I was reading this work, I felt I could imagine the nature, color and smell of their external surroundings accurately. In the middle of the story (through the descriptive styles) we find out that their dialogue is in regards to her getting an abortion and that they are indeed a couple. The man seems to want the abortion, but yet still claims he will support her regardless of her choice. The woman seems as if she does not want to go through with it. She will however because she wants to make him happy, doesn't care about herself, and simply wants things to go back to normal. With all of these factors being created, the author later demonstrates an exhibition of psychological realism since she refuses to talk about it. It is also realist in the sense that many situations as such seems to be highly common (couples having diverse opinions) and I thought I did a solid job of illustrating real life inducements.