Tension and Conflict in Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants
This essay analyzes the central theme of tension in Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants." The paper examines how Hemingway deploys three key literary devices — setting, symbolism, and diction — to reinforce the opposition between the two main characters, the American and Jig. By contrasting a barren train station with a lush natural landscape, using symbolic imagery to represent conflicting views on abortion, and analyzing Jig's desperate repetition of the word "please," the essay demonstrates how each literary element underscores the couple's irreconcilable differences and sustains the story's dominant tone of tension.
- Introduction: Theme of tension introduced through literary devices
- Setting as Opposition: Barren vs. lush landscape mirrors character conflict
- Symbolism and the Abortion Debate: Hills, valley, and table symbolize opposing choices
- Diction and the Weight of Repeated Words: Jig's repeated 'please' reveals desperate tension
- Conclusion: Setting, symbolism, and diction reinforce central tension
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What makes this paper effective
- Each body paragraph is tightly focused on a single literary device, making the argument easy to follow and assess.
- The essay uses direct quotations from the text and unpacks their significance, demonstrating close-reading skills appropriate for literary analysis.
- The paper maintains a consistent analytical thread — opposition and contrast — connecting all three literary devices to the central theme of tension.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the PIE (Point, Illustration, Explanation) structure within each body paragraph: it states a claim about a literary device, provides a direct quotation as evidence, and then explains how that quotation supports the claim. This is a foundational technique in literary essay writing that keeps analysis grounded in textual evidence.
Structure breakdown
The essay follows a classic five-paragraph structure: an introduction that identifies the theme and previews the literary devices, three body paragraphs each devoted to one device (setting, symbolism, diction), and a brief conclusion that restates the thesis. The organization is straightforward and well-suited to a focused close-reading assignment at the high school or early undergraduate level.
Introduction
The dominant theme of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" is the tension between its two main characters, the American and the girl, Jig. Hemingway uses a number of literary elements to reinforce this theme, and each of those elements underscores points of distinction and opposition. In doing so, they reinforce the conflict between the American and Jig — which is precisely why tension emerges as the story's defining force.
Setting as Opposition
The setting is one of the primary literary elements that emphasizes the opposition between the American and Jig. The story takes place at a train station — a significant choice, as the station is a manmade structure rather than a creation of nature. The characters occupy a barren environment that Hemingway describes as a place of "no shade and no trees…between two lines of rails in the sun." Yet directly across from the station lies a beautiful, natural landscape teeming with life. Hemingway describes this contrasting side as full of "fields of grain and trees along the banks of a river."
One side of the setting is rich with natural life; the side in which the characters sit is devoid of it. These two aspects of the setting are opposite one another, and that opposition mirrors and reinforces the tension between the two main characters.
Symbolism and the Abortion Debate
Hemingway also employs symbolism to illuminate the tension between the man and the girl. The pair is arguing about an operation the American wants Jig to have — an abortion. The symbolic imagery Hemingway uses makes clear that the two characters occupy opposite sides of this issue. Symbolism functions here as a quiet but powerful indicator of their irreconcilable positions.
Once Jig asks the American to stop trying to persuade her to have the operation, Hemingway writes that "the girl looked across at the hills on the…valley and the man looked at her and the table." In this passage, the hills and the valley represent nature and its natural order — symbolizing the girl's pregnancy and her inclination to keep the child. She looks toward that side because she is not inclined to have the abortion. The table, by contrast, symbolizes the train station and the realm of human intervention. That influence is the opposite of nature and represents the abortion the American is pressing for, which is the ultimate source of tension between them.
Conclusion
The main theme of "Hills Like White Elephants" is the tension between two characters locked in an unresolved argument about abortion. Through the literary devices of setting, symbolism, and diction, Hemingway constructs and sustains that tension from the story's opening lines to its ambiguous close, leaving readers with a vivid sense of a relationship under unbearable strain.
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