Abortion In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants
Abortion, weather it is right or wrong, it is still an enormous issue that numerous people, including politicians, worldwide deem upon differently. Recently, in Texas, the Supreme Court justified abortion rights by eliminating abortion laws. Contrasting today’s society, abortion was intolerable and entirely prohibited not too long ago. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Hemingway conveys a couple and a train station to symbolize the crossroads within their relationship due to an “operation” (abortion). The setting is significantly important in which the train station and its surroundings symbolize the restrain on time and the couple’s relationship as a whole.
In the story, Hemingway illustrates an American man and a girl waiting at a train station
in Spain for their next departure. While waiting, the couple discusses a rather more serious topic than they usually do. “’It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.’” (Hemingway 279). The operation that the man mentions to the girl, Jig, is what later appears to be an abortion. Although the man exhibited positive emotions towards having the operation done, Jig, on the other hand, was uncertain and ambiguous. Throughout the story, she torn between the decision of having a baby or the abortion. Hemingway deliberately sets the train station between two polar opposite regions. On one side of the station, it is fertile with white hills, while the other resides a barren valley. Symbolically, the different landscapes represent the dichotomy between life and death concerning the fate of the baby.
In addition to the landscape surrounding the station, Hemmingway also illustrate railroads to signify the couple’s relationship. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, the railroads are faced in opposing directions to indicate the couple going their separate ways. Their opposition and tension is caused by the girl’s hesitancy to undergo the operation, resulting them to withdraw from one another. “’The train comes in five minutes,’” (281). Hemingway also uses this statement to implicate that the girl is under a time restraint, correspondingly to a train. Like the train, she is constricted on time to decide whether or not she should continue to bear her child. When their conversation concluded, they are both found sitting separately and drinking alone, foreshadowing that the relationship once had will soon terminate.
In the story, Hemingway illustrates an American man and a girl waiting at a train station
in Spain for their next departure. While waiting, the couple discusses a rather more serious topic than they usually do. “’It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.’” (Hemingway 279). The operation that the man mentions to the girl, Jig, is what later appears to be an abortion. Although the man exhibited positive emotions towards having the operation done, Jig, on the other hand, was uncertain and ambiguous. Throughout the story, she torn between the decision of having a baby or the abortion. Hemingway deliberately sets the train station between two polar opposite regions. On one side of the station, it is fertile with white hills, while the other resides a barren valley. Symbolically, the different landscapes represent the dichotomy between life and death concerning the fate of the baby.
In addition to the landscape surrounding the station, Hemmingway also illustrate railroads to signify the couple’s relationship. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, the railroads are faced in opposing directions to indicate the couple going their separate ways. Their opposition and tension is caused by the girl’s hesitancy to undergo the operation, resulting them to withdraw from one another. “’The train comes in five minutes,’” (281). Hemingway also uses this statement to implicate that the girl is under a time restraint, correspondingly to a train. Like the train, she is constricted on time to decide whether or not she should continue to bear her child. When their conversation concluded, they are both found sitting separately and drinking alone, foreshadowing that the relationship once had will soon terminate.