Written in the 1920s‚ when society was still chiefly patriarchal‚ Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants presents a short dialogue between a boyfriend and a girlfriend at a train station. It is written in Hemingway’s famous Iceberg Theory‚ revealing only what is necessary to complete the story while leaving much of the detail up to the reader’s imagination. The short story about an American man and his girlfriend opens with a short description of the setting. Set at a railroad crossing near
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of literature‚ characters who love one another or share a friendship often face obstacles to their relationships. Sometimes the characters overcome the obstacle; sometimes the characters are defeated by the obstacle. In the short story “Hills like white elephants” by Ernest Hemmingway the two main characters; the girl and the American‚ aren’t quite in love but are in some sort of relationship dealing with a big obstacle of whether or not the girl should have the operation. Throughout this short
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figurative language‚ hills like white elephants representing Jig’s possibly unwanted pregnancy. These hills became the main subject of the story‚ “The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry. ‘They look like white elephants‚’ she said” (Hemingway 563). A white elephant is a costly and useless item in which a person cannot dispose of‚ which means that Jig was questioning her desire to keep her baby. However‚ later it seems like she changed her
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for a long awaited sense of adulthood‚ “Araby” by James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” reveal young individual’s sense of innocence‚ despite the apparent presence of the mature and sophisticated emotion of love. “Araby” describes the trials of a young boy‚ infatuated with a woman‚ who quickly realizes the harsh realities of the world. Similarly‚ the girl in “Hills Like White Elephants” is faced with a difficult decision‚ due to her sexual maturity‚ or lack there of. The
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Hemingway’s Minimalism in “Hills Like White Elephants” In this essay we will look at Earnest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” as an example of his use of the minimalist technique‚ what that technique is‚ and what its overall effect has on the reader. What is minimalism and how did Hemingway use this technique in “Hills Like White Elephants”? The primary effect of Minimalism in modern prose is to place the control of the work back onto the reader. That is to say‚ the reader is forced
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reads a short story they need to pay attention because even the smallest of details are important. This proves to be true due to analysis of the surroundings of the characters and how they react to them. In Ernest Hemingway’s short story "Hills Like White Elephants‚" the main conflict is a man who is trying to convince his female companion to have an abortion but the girl is resistant to the whole idea. Between the description of the couple’s surroundings‚ their dialogue‚ and how they react to the
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“Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story that begins with a man and his girlfriend waiting for a train in Spain. They drink alcoholic beverages and speak about an unnamed operation. As one reads further into the story‚ it becomes evident that the operation being discussed is an abortion. The man is trying his best to persuade his lover to abort their unborn child‚ but she is uncertain about what she ought to do. The girl‚ called Jig by her lover‚ is torn between a moral responsibility to her
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There are various aspects of the setting of the story “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway that contribute to the overall meaning of the work. One such example would be the railroad station in which the story takes place. Another piece of the setting includes the two parts of the valley across the tracks- a lush field full of life and a dry barren piece of land. A final detail would be the difference between the bright sun and the cool shade at the station. The most prominent feature
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submissive role that women have been defined by throughout history. Women refusing to assume the inferior position under men is how androcentric societies have since progressed towards a more gender-equal civilization. In the 1927 short story‚ "Hills Like White Elephants"‚ Ernest Hemingway illustrates the hardships and oppression most women in any patriarchal society face through careful diction and detailed depiction of feminist personalities. The oppression of females
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The dictionary defines “white elephant” as “a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit.” (Merriam Webster) It is clear that anyone who has a white elephant in their lives wishes to be rid of it. “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is a story that describes the conflict that arises from a white elephant‚ in this case‚ an unborn child. The father of the child‚ the American‚ wishes for the mother of the child‚ Jig‚ to have an abortion. The ending does not specify
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