Preview

Symbolism of Luggage in Ernest Hemingway's Hills like White Elephants

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
259 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Symbolism of Luggage in Ernest Hemingway's Hills like White Elephants
Hills Like White Elephants
In the story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, the author uses the luggage to symbolize the hard decision that the American and Jig face in regards to having the abortion. The couple faces a very difficult decision about this baby because they are not willing to give up their immature life style. The luggage symbolizes that Jig and the American are still very ambitious to travel around the world and if they were to keep the baby, their ambition would come to an end because the baby will come in the way. The story lets us know that they have been to many places, “There were labels on them from all the hotels they had spent nights.” This signifies that they have been to a lot of places in the world where they have built memories. Therefore, the couple feels they cannot continue to make more memories if they were to keep this baby. The baby seems to be a huge obstacle in their immature life because they do not want to take on this responsibility. In this story by Ernest Hemingway the couple feels that going with the abortion is their best choice. “He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks”. This lets us know that they are going on with the abortion and moving on with life. Having this procedure done will be the only way they can continue to be free and move on with their journey without any

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” was set in the time of the Vietnam War, and portrayed that each of the soldiers had something they carried. These things that each of the men carried represented them and how they coped when they were in the war. They needed these things as a necessity. Sometimes the things would get in the way of their thoughts and cause them to be distracted from their duties.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Although most of the features of "Hills Like White Elephants" have been well discussed and understood, so that Paul Smith, in his 1989 survey of opinion on the story, can wonder if there is anything left to say about it (209), what has not been satisfactorily resolved is the question of the ending. In view of the fact that Hemingway leaves virtually everything, even what is at issue between the girl and the American, for the reader to "figure" out, meanwhile unobtrusively supplying what is needed to understand the story's structure and conflict, it seems logical to assume that he also expected the reader to be able to answer the question left by the story's ending: What are the couple going to do about the girl's pregnancy? Yet the ending…

    • 175 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the short story “The Things They Carried,” written by Tim O’Brien, there is a lot of symbolism in each specific object that was mentioned. According to Dictionary.com, a symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character. A symbol is something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; emblem, token, or sign. The things each soldier carried defined each individual soldier. The story was very detailed in the objects the soldiers carried which tied into the emotional things the soldiers carried.…

    • 1663 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Things They Carried,” a short story by Tim O’Brien, the reader is able to see, in great detail, each of the characters ways of dealing with the atrocities of the Vietnam War by what they choose to carry; how symbolically they use these objects as a means for remembrance of what they have left behind, to escape what they deal with each day, and for some, a false sense of security and/or control over the violence and death that surrounds them.…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many different controversies on the information in “The Things They Carried”. Some believe to tell a good story, there's only facts and no truth, but some think that there needs to be all fictional elements and no facts to make a good story. A majority of people say that an excellent story starts with facts and adds in other elements like metaphors, symbolism, and imagery because visualizing the story helps the reader connect to the unfamiliar event.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although we are all humans, we have two very different genders a man and a woman. Each gender comes with a different body and ways our bodies react to things, as well the ability of those bodies. Even within the same gender there are differences in body types and what they are able to do. For example some women are incapable of having children, while other women have an easy time having children. Such as some men are naturally skinny while other men are naturally more big boned and heavier, also having trouble losing weight. There are women with these problems as well. The different body parts that a man and woman have is perhaps the biggest difference between the two genders and is often at the center of argument or debate between the genders. While those are major differences between the genders, the biggest differences is how our minds work and react to different situations in our lives. All those differences between genders also get added on by the diverse cultures and races in…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story. “The Things They Carried” was about a group of solders in the Viet Nam war.…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The symbolism of the man moving the luggage to the other side of the train station can be seen as a flip-flop of opinions about the abortion. At first the girl begins the conversation as if she is totally unsure with what she should do since she starts out with the white elephant comment. With this comment she is thinking about what she would look like pregnant and if she should keep the baby and not follow through with the abortion. Then in the middle of the conversation, she says, “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.” She makes that transition of being unsure about having the abortion for him to going ahead with it since it’s what he wants her to do. She then at the end of their conversation she comes out with, “Doesn’t it mean anything to you? (which “it” is assumed to be the baby) We could get along.” She has changed her mind now to maybe not wanting to go through the abortion and suggesting that it would be okay if the child was…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the novel, The Things They Carried, O’Brien illustrates the tragic impact of war on a soldier. In this novel O’Brien recounts numerous stories of innocent soldiers getting their minds corrupted by the horrors of war. He tries to convey the burden the soldiers had to carry throughout the war. The title, The Things They Carried, is symbolic of the emotional load the soldiers carry during the Vietnam War. O’brien tries to tell us that the mental burden carried by the soldiers far outweigh the physical load, and he authenticated that through his war stories about Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Jimmy Cross, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, and many more. He successfully paints the image that the physical load each man carried just underscores their emotional…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    In reading the novel “The Things They Carried” in my english class this year, I have learned that most, if not all, people carry intangible and tangible things with them everyday. In my readings, I found that the soldiers in the novel carry their tangible things to help with what they are carrying intangibly. Regardless, the things we carry make us stand out in our own way; they make us who we are. I, for example, carry the emotional stress that attacks me everyday, and a ring that I love.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Writers and Artists have something in common, they both paint the pictures and have a meaning in their work. People interpret their work differently and come up with similar results.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story “Hills Like White Elephants” was written by Ernest Hemingway. The author seems to be a minimalist where he does not provide explanation about the very issue why the couple is unhappy and annoyed with each other. To have a more deeper understanding on the literature, I have looked up a translated version of it and according to a Japanese translation of the very story, it said that the problem was about her pregnancy and that the man wants her to have an abortion. It was then understandable that why the author might have left that information out of the story because, having an abortion is not something you would talk in public which in this story’s case, they happened to be in some kind of bar. I believe…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story "Hills like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway is a fascinating story about one couple having faced with an unexpected pregnancy. The theme of the story is about the couple's decision between life and death. The main character Jig and The American are in disagreements on weather to keep their baby, or have an abortion. The couple's lack of communication creates the conflict in the story. For example, Jigs says, "We can have all this..." "And everyday we make it more impossible" While this problem is going on, the couple is sitting at a train station in the middle of a valley. Each side of the valley represents either life or death. As Jig moves about in the story, she faces different sides of the valley, which helps to determine the decision she will make. With the many descriptions and symbolism throughout the story, the final decision seems as if Jig is keeping the baby.…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism starts at the very beginning with the title “Hills Like Whit Elephants.” A white elephant is a burdensome possession and an expensive undertaking, as is a baby. In paragraph ten, the girl says, “they look like white elephants.” This simile is referring to the hills. Later in the story, the girl retracts that comment, hinting that she may want to keep the baby.…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays