In his short story, “Hills Like White Elephants”, Ernest Hemingway manipulates the details of the setting in order to exemplify the characters’ struggle in deciding whether to have an abortion. Ernest Hemingway carefully chooses the way in which he expresses the setting by only giving limited details through the character dialogue. The reader understands that the characters are in the hills between “fields of grain and trees…[and] mountains” (477). The hills represent the pregnancy, while the fields
In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” setting details allow the reader to understand background as to the characters’ principles and struggles with identity. Hills Like White Elephants - Theme: The two characters, the girl and the American, struggle with the possibility of accepting new identities: that of being parents. To add to the complication, it is clear that there is a divergence in their opinions on keeping the child with the girl
Set in the hills of Spain, Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story of an American man and a woman who is presumed to be his girlfriend, though it is never actually spoken of. The couple is awaiting a train to Madrid and decide to take shade in a near by bar and have a few drinks. While drinking the American sparks up conversation with the girl, and although Hemming way uses direct dialoged between the characters, the subject of the conversation is left for analysis. Some
symbolic setting to develop his characters in “Hills Like White Elephants”. Instead of discussing his characters' dilemma directly, Hemingway uses symbolic words like “white”, “two”, “beaded curtain”, “dry side” to create a setting that suggests the struggle that the characters are engaged in while making a life-changing decision. The word white, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is defined as “free from color, free from spot or blemish”2. I feel Hemingway uses the word “white” in his
Upon an initial reading, Earnest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is a very vague story of a man and a woman, named Jig, going back and forth in dialogue about their “predicament,” that is not specifically named. However, with the use of descriptive settings, Hemingway is able to give great detail as to what the couple is discussing. Without it being specifically named, the reader is able to infer that the woman, Jig, is pregnant, and the man wants her to get an “operation,” assumed to be
In “Hills Like White Elephants” Ernest Hemingway uses the theme of Communication to potray an issue that has plagued society for decades. Understanding of human condition is represented by the beautiful setting in the short story. The main characters are the American man and a female named Jig who share a strong bond of love; however, the more powerful yet sacred bond is between Jig and her unborn child. A long time ago, our society was filled with moral and ethical values but times have changed
Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Ernest Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants, certain characters from each story have an immense effect on the relationships by expressing their egotistical values to their families or significant others. In both short stories, the problem is that the characters have a lack of mutual understanding with one another. This is because there is constant bickering
Hemingway in his “Hills Like White Elephants” through the limited narrator describes that a decision is a thought or an idea put into action by circumstances. What makes us arrive at certain decisions and deal with their consequences is the question that keeps popping up in the story. Whether a decision or choice is right or wrong is not the question and is rather an irrelevant topic because what is right for one person is completely wrong and unacceptable for another. Instead the importance in
literary movement. Modernist Literature has several very specific characteristics. “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway belongs to Modernist Literature because it has an ominous setting, is based around a spiritually compromising topic, and because it displays the workings of the inner mind. Those traits concur with Modernism. This story is about abortion, and while it isn’t stated blatantly, the white elephant being described is a child: a child that the American man, who remains nameless
Thom (Cara) Jones Kerschner ENGL 1022 A Study of Being Reasonable in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Reasonable behavior and unreasonable women. That is what first comes to mind when I read “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. I, as fan of Old Hollywood, am reminded of the way women have been portrayed in film and also their roles in reality. Written in 1927 during a time of great social change, women had more liberties than before. They had the right to vote, there