Hills Like White Elephants By Paul Rankin Analysis

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Earnest Hemingway In his summary of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Earnest Hemingway, Paul Rankin comes to a few conclusions about the a young girl in the story. Using both Carl Jung and Karen Horney’s application of human behavior to buttress his opinion, Rankin comes to the conclusion that Jig was the superior actor and the unnamed American is the inferior actor in the play. The evidence Rankin uses to prove Jung’s theory is that the nature of the mans feelings of inadequacy and inferiority in the face of Jigs imminent transformation from the girl into motherhood (Rankin 234). And his conclusions using Horney’s school of thought is mans fundamental lack of a life-creating power with which woman is imbued, has motivated the creation of such historically masculine enterprises as state, religion, art, and science, in mans attempt to compensate for that insurmountable deficiencies .a (Rankin 235) There is further evidence that Rankin’s take on the American in White Elephants is one of an inferior player by using the banter between Jig and the unnamed American male to show she was in control, We encounter further evidence of the mans inferiority complex in his severe response to Jigs playful banter about the similarity between hills and elephants. Having already admitted that he has never seen white elephants, the man angrily berates Jig, saying, Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything (Rankin 236). Paul Rankin’s over all view of "Hills Like White
Rankin’s observations that I do agree with. He has taken the story, in my humble opinion, to a much a deeper level than I believe it should have been taken. Yes there is symbolism and metaphors used to convey a point but I am not sure you would need to go to the level of a Jung or Horney to get the meaning of the story. There is definitely a lesson to be learned but to use a Freudian saying, sometimes a cigar is just a