Preview

Hills Like White Elephants Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
284 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Hills Like White Elephants Analysis
The story “Hills like White Elephants” is written by Ernest Hemingway. It’s about a couple, who had an intense conversation about abortion. The man began by trying to convince the girl, Jig, to have an abortion. However, she does want the child but is scared about the abortion and wants to please the man by doing what he wants. She worried whether her relationship will be back on track and this will solve their problem. Jig indecisively agreed to have the abortion just because she does not care about herself but the man thought she shouldn’t do it for that reason. However, he clearly did insist that she does it. Which left her deeply apprehensive about the operation. The central idea is that when any couples go through a crisis of an unexpected
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants
    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Symbolism In Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

    Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” portrays the turmoil a couple endures when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, the choice to hold onto their current life or to begin a new life. Readers are allowed to intrude on a conversation between an American man and a girl, further conflict is presented through Hemingway’s use of symbolism. The man wants to go through with an abortion while the girl is unsure about which track she should take. Throughout the story, Hemmingway’s use of abundant details about the setting, rather than providing much detail about the characters, reveal a conflict between the man’s desire for the girl to have a “perfectly natural” (Hemingway 116) procedure and the decision to forgo an “awfully simple operation”…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Short Story 'Hills Like White Elephants'
    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Short Story 'Hills Like White Elephants'

    The girl, called Jig by her lover, is torn between a moral responsibility to her unborn child and a romantic bond between herself and the American. On one hand, the American is her lover; she doesn’t want to lose their relationship. She seems willing to do anything to stay with him—almost anything. On the other hand, this unborn child has an unspoken connection that every child shares with its mother. Cutting away the baby would be cutting away that connection.…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Evaluation Argument "Hills Like White Elephants"
    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Evaluation Argument "Hills Like White Elephants"

    A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession, but also it means a rare and sacred creature. In Ernest Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway uses an unborn child as a white elephant. This short story depicts a couple of an American man and young women at a train station somewhere in Spain. Hemingway tells the story from watching the couple from across the bar and listening to their troublesome conversation. Through overhearing the couple’s conversation Hemingway uses dialogue to explain the couple’s decision of an abortion operation. Hills Like White Elephants is a great example of Hemingway’s rare use of dialogue. Hemingway compresses dialogue in his stories by removing authorial guidance, forcing readers to interpret for themselves shades of meaning (Del Gizzo, Moddelmog 175). In the short story Hemingway also uses the setting to help the reader understand what the man and woman are feeling and thinking as they await their train. By providing details of the hills, bar, and landscape the reader can better understand the emotions and situation the couple are experiencing. The way that Hemingway creates the characters is a very interesting way because he lets the reader make their own opinions about the characters through their actions and words. In Hills Like White Elephants Hemingway uses compressed dialogue to let the reader interpret the story themselves while also using the setting and characters to help show the situation that the story portrays.…

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hills Like White Elephants Ending Analysis
    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hills Like White Elephants Ending Analysis

    This couple was talking about a very serious topic but didn’t want to make it obvious to the people around them what they were talking about; but there was enough details to infer the subject of their conversation. The woman wanted to keep the baby, but the man disagreed and thought having an abortion would be best for the two of them. They were always living on the road and never stayed in once place for a long period of time. The man believed this was a good enough reason to not have the baby, but the woman argued, saying the baby could be on the road with them. Another thing they didn’t see eye-to-eye about is, the man believed “ It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” and “I think it is the best thing to do” but the woman was just worried if the man would still love her after the operation, if she would change her mind do it. After the two were disgusting this while drinking, the woman was starting to have enough of the conversation, it seemed and kept the man to stop talking. She wanted to keep the baby while the person she was going to have the baby with didn’t want the same thing. During the whole conversation between the two of them, they never used the word abortion; they never wanted the people around them to understand what they were disgusting. The readers of this story…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hills Like White Elephants Essay
    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Hills Like White Elephants Essay

    She seemed to be very dependent on the man that she could not make up her mind. She always has to ask before she decides from ordering her drinks to what to do with her pregnancy. However, she seems as if she had made up her own mind in the end that she’ll be moving forward with her life with him or without him.…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hills Like White Elephants Analysis
    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Hills Like White Elephants Analysis

    The American sees it as a problem that can easily be solved as where Jig sees it as a beautiful experience. Jig looks to the hills and says; "they look like white elephants" by saying "white elephants" she is referring to her pregnancy. Jig continues to say, "They're lovely hills" meaning having a baby will be lovely. The American tires to minimize the beauty of it and explains, "It's really not anything. They just let the air in." Even though the conflict is the man and Jigs issue with keeping the baby or getting an abortion, it is ultimately up to Jig to decide. Towards the end of the story when the man gets the final say about the abortion, the girl says, "I'll scream." Meaning she has made up her mind and she does not want to hear anymore from the…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Compare And Contrast Hills Like White Elephant And The Story Of An Hour
    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Compare And Contrast Hills Like White Elephant And The Story Of An Hour

    Ernest Hemingway’s "Hills Like White Elephants," tells the story of an American man and a girl who is named Jig. They are both sitting outside of a train station in Spain looking across a valley while drinking beer. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Hemingway discusses the landscape before them, the valley of the Ebro River, that has long white hills. As the American and the girl begin to have a conversation, the girl remarks on the Ebro River of the way it looks. After a while the American asked her if she wanted to do the operation (an abortion which was learned in the author's comment at the end) and explained to her that she would be fine. However, she began to think if she participates in the operation would the American lover still be with her. Nevertheless, the American knows that if the operation is not done he would not be able to do certain things; therefore, he is trying to eliminate the reasons to settle down with Jig. Towards the end of the story, Jig and the American would argue about the operation; even though the American does not want a child.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Australian Beaches In The 1950's
    • 96 Words
    • 1 Page

    Australian Beaches In The 1950's

    It was the 1950’s, two young men with curly blonde hair named James and Alex the had been traveling the globe looking for the best hot spots in the world for surfing. The boys had been gone for two months but are driving home from the airport now. They’d had wanted something new and exciting they’d never seen before. The beaches they visited were in Fiji, Hawaii and Brazil. They were nothing like the beaches in Australia the people were different, the waves were different and the sand was different. But was it a good different?…

    • 96 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Bartleby The Scrivener Gender Roles
    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Bartleby The Scrivener Gender Roles

    Jig asks her lover if he will worry about the procedure, and he responds by saying he considers the treatment simplistic, and then Jig states, “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.” This statement further asserts the idea that Jig is looking to appease her male counterpart and put her own feelings aside in order to remain with her lover. Jig doesn’t want to lose her current relationship, because her internalized gender stereotypes tell her that women need to be supported by a male figure. Additionally, Jig is continuously being pressured to make her decision by overbearing lover. The man states early on in the story states that, “[They’ll] be fine afterwards. Just like [they] were before,” and then finally claims that the only problem that exists between them is this decision on whether Jig should have an abortion or not. Jig is faced with the decision to either not receive the treatment, which could end in the destruction of her romantic relationship, or to go through with treatment, but regret her decision for the rest of her life. Due to the external pressure to please her lover, like a “good” women would do, Jig receptively states, “I’ll do it,” and soon begins to contemplate this decision. Even though the reader is never…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Femanist View of Hills Like White Elephants
    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Femanist View of Hills Like White Elephants

    As the story starts we see a young couple. At first glance it is a stereotypical gender couple. The man is in charge. He does the ordering for them He makes the decisions as to what and how much they will drink. She allows him to be in charge (letting him be the stronger one the male). She even ask him “What should we drink?” (Hemingway, 2012, p.4) She lets him be in control. Like most women of the time period (1920 's -1930 's) Jig wants to to please her man. She is willing to do this at any cost. Jig would even have an abortion if that 's what it will take to please him. “And if I do it you 'll be happy and things will be like they were and you 'll love me?” (Hemingway ,2012, p.55)…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hills Like White Elephants
    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hills Like White Elephants

    The short story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is about an American man and a girl who goes by Jig. The two are waiting in a train station between Barcelona and Madrid. As the couple waits, they go and get some drinks while they designate an important decision; whether or not they should get an abortion. In the story an ‘abortion’ is never mentioned directly so it allows the readers thoughts to linger on symbolism. Courage is a theme that is revealed in the story through the two devices irony and symbolism. Jig is the courageous one in the story, not because she is pregnant with the child because she seems willing to keep it, thinking it will bring joy to her typical life.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hills Like White Elephants
    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Hills Like White Elephants

    “Hill Like White Elephants” written by Ernest Hemingway, revolves around a couple sitting and conversing at a train station. The two have ordered a couple of beers and continue to make small talk. Their conversation seems casual at first but then turns tense when the American exposes the unspoken trouble between them. They begin to talk about whether or not Jig, the woman should have an “operation”. It never clearly says what the operation is, but from various clues the reader can conclude that the operation that they are talking about is abortion. The American begins trying to convince the Jig to have an abortion. He cunningly try’s to comfort Jig by telling her that decision is totally up to her, but then tells her that he believes that the operation would be the best thing for the both of them. Jig can’t seem to decide, but seems reluctant to go through with the operation.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Fiction Analysis Hills Like White Elephants
    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Fiction Analysis Hills Like White Elephants

    Close interpretation of the story "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway leads the reader to an issue that has plagued society for decades. Understanding of the human condition is unveiled in the story line, the main setting, and through the character representation. The main characters in the story are an American man and a female named Jig. The conflict about abortions is an issue that still faces society today. Architectural and atmospheric symbolisms are used to set the mood and outline the human condition. The love bond between the man and Jig is strong; however, the more powerful bond between Jig and her unborn child is sacred.…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Effects on the Environment of Mass Food Production
    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Effects on the Environment of Mass Food Production

    Mass food production has become an increasing issue in the world. It was created to help solve the lack of nutrition problem that was created by the staggering population growth of the human race. Short term it has solved the issue it was created for. But there are inherent risks that come with this type of food production. Mass food production causes a great deal of stress on the environment. The land, air, and water in the areas used for this production are slowly being destroyed. The problem does not just reside with feedlots; there are also issues with the fish farming industry as well as the agriculture industry.…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Life Is a Race
    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Life Is a Race

    Society or human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. By extension, society denotes the people of a region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole.[1] Used in the sense of an association, a society is a body of individuals outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, possibly comprising characteristics such as national or cultural identity, social solidarity, language or hierarchical organization. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Like other communities or groups, a society allows its members to achieve needs or wishes they could not fulfill alone.independent of, and utterly irreducible to, the qualities of constituent individuals; it may act to oppress. The urbanization and rationalization inherent in some, particularly Western capitalist, societies, has been associated with feelings of isolation and social "anomie".…

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics