Male Figure in Hills Like White Elephants

¶ … male figure in Hills Like White Elephants is inferior to Jig, the female counterpart within the story, yet Jig's realization of her strengths against the male is her power to refuse having the abortion surgery. Of course, the story is never resolved and many critical analysts of Hemingway's story have sought to make a prediction about what decision Jig will ultimately make in the face of such a selfish and immature man; Rankin is no different. The orientation of his article is mostly analyzing the dialogue between the man and Jig, paying special attention to her responses and reactions rather than his. In this way, Jig is always the most important person within the story due to the fact that she is the one who is debating whether or not to have the operation. Rankin takes the position that Jig is stronger than the acts, but these displays of strength play out in her remarks and attitudes towards the man, for example, when the man keeps trying to bring up excuses as to why she should get the operation and Jig finally gets sick of it and asks for him to stop talking (Hemingway, 214). Rankin's article is mostly on point with my own feelings about this story, except that I personally do not agree with his last point on what the "white elephants" represent, since Rankin's last point is to say that they represent the man, but I still maintain that they represent a pregnant woman at full term. They way she lovingly makes the comment about the hills "…look like white elephants," (Hemingway, 211) and then later becomes despondent about the fact that she is making a decision about aborting her child.

The first and second major points that Rankin makes is about the inadequacy the man feels next to Jig because she obviously has more experience with exotic things like tasting absinthe, and seeing white elephants, whereas the man seems to have a limited scope of adventurous things to do. Rankin also points out that since Jig has the awe-inspiring power of life within her that the man feels doubly inferior next to her, which is why he is trying to stamp her down with convincing her to get the abortion operation. I would wholeheartedly agree with this analysis of the relationship of power between the man and Jig. The relationship itself seems to be in trouble because Jig is unsure about the operation and yet (for some reason) wants to save what little she has left with the man, plus (as Jig said herself), and they do is, "…look at things and try new drinks." (Hemingway, 212). It seems that the power has shifted to Jig because she may be tired of continual travel and drinking and ready to actually settle down with her child and start a family. Obviously, this is threatening to the man, who seems quite happy and content to travel around d the world and do nothing but try new drinks, thus he tries his hardest to convince Jig to get the operation, and yet he continues to insist that, "I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to," which, of course, he does insist at least a few more times before their train comes. As far as Jig's life experiences making the man feel inadequate, I agree with that as well since he almost snaps at her when she playfully jokes that he "wouldn't have [seen white elephants]" (Hemingway, 211), meaning that he probably isn't as cultured as she is, or at least doesn't have interests in things beyond drinking. The man may feel like less of a man for not being as cultured as the "girl" is, like somehow it is fundamentally wrong for a girl like Jig, on the brink of womanhood with this pregnancy that is bothering him so bad, to know more than he does about the world. Indeed Rankin agrees that the man is trying very hard to keep Jig in a spot where the man likes her, still a girl and not a woman.