Hills Like White Elephants
Essays

This assignment analyzes a number of critical sources that indicate the outcome of Hemingway's story. Further analysis of the text itself indicates that Jig does not get an abortion at the end of the story. This point is argued throughout the duration of the paper.

Ernest Hemingway's "Hills like White Elephants"

The man' and 'the girl.' Through these identifying monikers alone it should be obvious why the short story by Ernest Hemingway entitled "Hills like White Elephants" would be a favorite of Rene Gallimard, the hero of…

Hills Like White Elephants": Critical Analysis

¶ … Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway and "Young Goodman Brown," by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Specifically it will compare the two works and find a common element in the theme and then show how the stories…

¶ … 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.

Introduction One of the first things entering the mind of a reader (on an obvious level) in Hemingway's short story is that the image of a white elephant the woman sees in the line of hills in the distance has created a classic man-woman conundrum. She sees it her way and he sees it his. The beer and the anis del Toro – and the expectant train – are just pieces on the chessboard, merely part of the setting that perhaps will play a role in this very short story. Thesis: Like his other short stories, this brilliant piece of fiction by Hemingway is very tightly written but it packs symbolism, irony and characterization into a short amount of space. In this story, the ultimate meaning is that the man does not wish to take responsibility for the woman's pregnancy and on the other hand she has superior imagination, vision, understanding, and knowledge of the natural world and of humanity. The white elephant to her is a rare and beautiful thing but to him the white elephant is something of less value he would rather avoid.

This paper is a literary analysis of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants." Hemingway's short story was pioneering when first published because it merged the conventions of drama with that of traditional narrative. The characters' inability to talk about the woman's impending abortion is revealed in repetitive, circular dialogue rather than description.

In Hemingway's story there are a number of contrasts between the two people. First of all, there are the obvious contrasts -- he's a man, she's a woman. He speaks Spanish, she doesn't.

"Hills Like White Elephants" – Ernest Hemingway Will the couple agree to an abortion? Thesis: Jig, the girlfriend, knows she is going to have to give in to the man and have the abortion, and there are hints and there is foreshadowing (albeit very subtle) that provide the clues. This paper reviews the subtleties and on pages 2 and 3 points to specific passages that suggest she will in fact give in to him and abort the baby. Subtle Hints in the Narrative The reader knows from a careful study of the short story that these two have traveled together and are very familiar with each other's positions on the issue at hand. It is obvious from the start that there is tension between the two, and the fact that a train is on its way adds to the heightened tension. Hemingway is well known for his brilliant use of allegory, metaphor and imagery. Could the fact that the couple is seated between the train tracks suggest that the decision could go either way – and that the author did not want to be definitive about the outcome because keeping critics and scholars guessing over the years will keep the story alive and even create an endless literary mystery?