This essay argues that Ernest Hemingway's 1927 short story "Hills Like White Elephants" — deliberately ambiguous in its iceberg-theory style — ultimately reveals that its protagonist, Jig, chooses not to have an abortion and will separate from her American lover. Drawing on close readings of the story's dialogue, characterization, and symbolism, as well as relevant literary criticism and biographical context, the essay demonstrates how Hemingway embeds his conclusion in subtle textual cues: Jig's oblique conversations about her unborn child, her growing exasperation with the American's relentless pressure, and her final declaration that she feels "fine" — a statement that implicitly affirms both her pregnancy and her resolve.
The paper exemplifies close reading as an analytical method. The author does not merely summarize plot; instead, specific word choices — such as Jig's use of "they" to mean medical staff and "it" to mean the unborn child, or Hemingway's description of other passengers waiting "reasonably" — are isolated and interpreted as evidence. This granular attention to language is the defining skill of literary analysis at the undergraduate level.
The essay opens with a contextualizing introduction that names the central debate (abortion) and states the thesis. Three body sections then build the argument sequentially through dialogue, characterization, and symbolism. A dedicated section on Jig's closing lines delivers the climactic textual proof, and a conclusion ties the argument back to Hemingway's iceberg theory. An annotated works-cited list closes the paper, adding source context unusual in standard MLA format.
It is quite possible that Ernest Hemingway was being deliberately deceptive when he wrote "Hills Like White Elephants," which first appeared in 1927 in the short story collection Men Without Women. Regardless of his intention, when the story is read outside of the social and cultural context in which it was written — as is the case when a contemporary reader peruses this text — it carries a certain aura of duplicity in which undiscerning readers may be lulled into misinterpreting its meaning, or possibly even thinking that there is no meaning at all. Close analysis of literary criticism, as well as an examination of biographical information about Hemingway's life, informs readers that a crucial debate is occurring between the two main characters regarding whether or not a young woman named Jig will have an abortion — a subject that was certainly taboo, shocking, and largely illegal during the time the story was written (Anderson, 2009). Hemingway deliberately ends the short story without climax or resolution to the conundrum that has absorbed the characters throughout. Yet a close reading of the dialogue, characterization, and symbolism that figure prominently in the story reveals that by its conclusion, Jig has decided not to get an abortion and to keep the child she is carrying.
One of Hemingway's primary tools for communicating that Jig has been swayed to keep her baby is the story's dialogue. Fairly early on, and in a number of separate instances throughout the text, it becomes abundantly clear that when Jig and her lover — referred to only as "the American" — speak to one another, they are actually talking about different things. The effect of these differences is quite significant, as the following quotation, in which Jig appears to be speaking about the surrounding scenery, readily demonstrates:
"And we could have all this," she said. "And we can have everything and every day we make it more impossible."
"What did you say?"
"I said we could have everything."
"We can have everything."
"No, we can't."
"We can have the whole world."
"No, we can't."
"We can go everywhere."
"No, we can't. It isn't ours any more."
"No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back."
"But they haven't taken it away."
"We'll wait and see."
In this exchange, Jig is actually speaking about the fact that having a baby would significantly alter her life — and conceivably that of her lover, should he choose to stay with her. In her initial statement she refers to the scenery when she says they could have "this," yet in her next sentence she acknowledges that despite all the things she and her lover could have, it would be "impossible" to have those things once the child was born. Such impossibility would grow with "every day," as the child would be growing, requiring more attention, and reshaping their lives entirely.
Jig's implicit reference to her child is why she repeatedly tells her lover they cannot have everything, and why she says the world is no longer theirs — because it has been replaced by the life growing within her. It becomes still more explicit that Jig is talking about her baby, while her lover continues to speak about the surroundings and the future they could share, when one analyzes her use of pronouns in her second-to-last line. The "they" she refers to are the doctors and hospital staff who would conduct the abortion her lover is proposing (despite the fact that he consistently calls it an "operation"), while the "it" that can never be returned after the doctors take it away is, of course, the child.
Hemingway also utilizes characterization to emphasize that Jig is growing increasingly disenchanted with her lover and with his position that she should have an operation. The American is relentlessly persistent in his effort to persuade Jig to abort the baby — a persistence that becomes a growing source of discomfort for her and a reason to distrust his stance on the issue, as the following quotation illustrates:
"Would you do something for me now?"
"I'll do anything for you."
While Hemingway's notorious iceberg theory style of writing has left it rather equivocal as to whether or not Jig will have an abortion, a thorough analysis of the text adequately demonstrates that she will not — and that her relationship with her American lover is fated to end soon. Hemingway utilizes important elements of dialogue, characterization, and symbolism to subtly imply this outcome. These implicit clues are part of the author's iceberg theory, so named because an iceberg appears graceful precisely because only one-eighth of it is visible above the water; Hemingway purposefully omits details to keep readers intrigued and engaged with his stories (Anderson, 2009). This style of writing forces readers to examine which fragments of significance the author has chosen to reveal — fragments that, in this particular instance, overwhelmingly point to the conclusion that Jig will leave her lover and keep her child. The incongruities between the pair are evidenced in their dialogue, in which Jig speaks on a level her lover cannot follow, and this gap ultimately helps her arrive at her decision.
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