Power and Gender in Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants
This paper examines the power dynamics between Jig and the unnamed man in Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants," drawing on Paul Rankin's critical analysis published in The Explicator. The essay argues that Jig, despite appearing passive, holds greater psychological and experiential power than the man throughout the story. It traces how the man's insecurity manifests in his attempts to pressure Jig into an abortion, how Jig's wider worldly experience undermines the man's sense of authority, and how her growing resolve ultimately leads to her rejection of his framing. The paper also challenges Rankin's interpretation of the "white elephants" symbol, offering an alternative reading tied to Jig's pregnancy and emerging sense of selfhood.
- Introduction: Jig's Concealed Strength: Rankin's focus on Jig's dialogue and power
- The Man's Inadequacy and Jig's Experience: Man's inferiority and Jig's broader worldly experience
- Jig's Vacillation and Final Resolve: Jig's shifting emotions and rejection of the man's pressure
- Disagreement on the White Elephants Symbol: Alternative reading of hills as pregnancy symbol
- Conclusion: Affirming Jig's ultimate strength and resolve
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper engages directly and critically with a secondary source (Rankin), clearly distinguishing between points of agreement and disagreement rather than simply summarizing.
- It grounds its claims in specific textual evidence, quoting dialogue from Hemingway to support each interpretive point.
- The alternative reading of the "white elephants" symbol is argued with personal conviction, showing independent critical thinking rather than deference to the scholarly source.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates source engagement as critical dialogue. Rather than treating Rankin's article as authoritative, the author positions it as a point of comparison, consistently measuring Rankin's conclusions against their own close reading of the text. This move — agreeing on some points, qualifying others, and explicitly rejecting one — models how undergraduate literary analysis can use secondary sources without being subservient to them.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by framing Rankin's overall approach and the author's general alignment with it. It then moves through Rankin's three major argumentative points in sequence, evaluating each in turn. The final section isolates the one major point of disagreement — the symbolism of the white hills — before a brief conclusion affirming the paper's central claim about Jig's power. The structure is linear and logically cumulative.
Introduction: Jig's Concealed Strength
The 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 predict 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 to analyze 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 debating whether or not to have the operation.
Rankin takes the position that Jig is stronger than she acts, and these displays of strength play out in her remarks and attitudes towards the man — for example, when the man keeps offering excuses as to why she should get the operation and Jig finally grows tired of it and asks him to stop talking (Hemingway, 214). Rankin's article is mostly in line with my own feelings about the story, except that I do not agree with his final point on what the "white elephants" represent. Rankin argues that they represent the man, but I maintain that they represent a pregnant woman at full term — evident in the way Jig lovingly remarks that the hills "look like white elephants" (Hemingway, 211) and then later becomes despondent as she confronts her decision about the pregnancy.
The Man's Inadequacy and Jig's Experience
The first and second major points that Rankin makes concern the inadequacy the man feels next to Jig. She obviously has more experience with exotic things — tasting absinthe, seeing white elephants — whereas the man appears to have a limited range of adventurous interests. Rankin also points out that since Jig possesses the awe-inspiring power of life within her, the man feels doubly inferior, which is why he tries to diminish her by convincing her to have the abortion. This analysis of the power dynamic between the man and Jig is entirely persuasive.
The relationship itself seems to be in trouble because Jig is unsure about the operation and yet, for some reason, wants to salvage what little she has left with the man. As Jig herself observed, all 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 settle down with her child and start a family. This prospect is clearly threatening to the man, who seems content to wander the world and try new drinks indefinitely. He therefore tries his hardest to convince Jig to get the operation, all while insisting repeatedly, "I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to" — a claim he makes at least a few more times before their train arrives.
As for Jig's life experiences making the man feel inadequate, that reading is equally convincing. He almost snaps at her when she playfully jokes that he "wouldn't have [seen white elephants]" (Hemingway, 211), suggesting he is not as cultured as she is, or at least has interests that extend no further than drinking. The man may feel diminished by the fact that Jig — a young woman on the brink of full womanhood through this pregnancy — knows more about the world than he does. As Rankin notes, the man is working very hard to keep Jig in the position he prefers: still a girl, and not yet a woman.
Jig's Vacillation and Final Resolve
Rankin's final major point concerns how Jig wavers back and forth about her decision and grows increasingly frustrated with the man's relentless pleading. At first she becomes despondent at the thought of "the whole world" being taken away from her — the fear that after the operation she may never again enjoy the things she once did (Hemingway, 213). Then, after summoning some resolve, she grows so fed up with the man that she threatens to "scream" (Hemingway, 214) if he does not stop talking about the operation and his reasons for wanting it.
Rankin is on point in concluding that Jig has decided there is "nothing wrong with her" (Hemingway, 214). As Rankin puts it, "The man has heretofore treated Jig's pregnancy like a burden or an illness," and Jig has arrived at the conclusion that she will probably not have the operation and will instead leave the relationship, having correctly recognized that the man is selfish and does not truly love her. This reading of Hemingway's understated narrative is compelling and aligns closely with a careful reading of the dialogue.
Conclusion
Jig is much stronger than she initially appears against the man's unrelenting passive-aggressiveness on the question of abortion. In the end, we can only hope that Jig finally came to recognize her own strength and acted on it.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigía Edition. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987. pp. 211–214. Print.
Rankin, Paul. "Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants." The Explicator 63.4 (2005): 234+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 17 May 2011.
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