Symbolism And Communication In Hills Like White Elephants

“Hills Like White Elephants” was written in 1927 by one of America’s most famous writers, Ernest Hemingway. It was published in a larger work called “Men Without Women.”

Synopsis. The story focuses on a conversation between an American man and a girl at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid. The girl compares the nearby hills to white elephants. The pair obliquely discuss an "operation" that the man wants the woman to have, which is implied to be an abortion.

You will write a research paper that includes quoted material from four research sources. only database material may be used. Please use Bloom’s Literary database. Any research obtained from online sources will not count towards this required element.

Your paper can deal with any topic related to the story that you wish. Some suggestions include:

• the characters
• their methods of conversing
• their problem and how it influences their view of things around them
• symbolic objects
• Realism in the story
• communication between the sexes

Analysis

The story Hills like White Elephants opens up with an elucidated analysis set up against the backdrop of a train that is surrounded by hills, fields and greeneries located in a valley in Spain. Based on the background the story focuses on a communication in between an American and his girlfriend who he met at a Spanish train station while waiting for the train to Madrid. While having the conversation the girls describes about the nearby surrounding views specifically the hills with the white elephants. Therefore, the entire story presents symbolic meaning hidden in the connotations used by the author. In addition to this, the study outlines the symbolic conversation in between the two sexes along with the problems that impacts on perception about the surroundings.

The characters in the story includes a conversation in between a man who is simply denoted as an American and his girlfriend who he met at the Spanish train station. Both the character initiates a conversation in between each other over two bottles of beer (Hemingway).  Based on these characters the story stresses on the conversation in between the American man and the young woman.

Conversation is above all it is based on the communicative cooperation amongst the participants. However, things may be seen as a bit chaotic at the beginning of the story, rather it is an intricate process that follows particular patterns developed by the speakers themselves on the one part and on the contrary, the linguistic rules of a given speech community. Most of the time the man has been seen in a way where” he did not say anything but looked at the bags lying against the wall of the station.”  This represented that the conversation in between the man and woman was less and the man was going through some tensions (Hemingway). Natural and functional style of conversation may be different from each other in many ways. In their conversation, the brief and straightforward dialogue has been vividly illustrated with different figures of the world. The method of conversation used in the story are all direct speech that has been used to build up the plots that ended the distance from the story towards the real life of the reader. Therefore, while reading this short story, readers will be able to relate themselves with the couples in a way that they overheard their dialogues and was able to doubt their inner thoughts without acknowledging their history and relationship. Therefore, the methods of conversation used in this story illustrated the plots other than just telling the story as a write in r. In the “ Hills like White Elephants” both the man and the young girl converse with each other in short sentences and rarely uttered more than just little words one at a time. In this, Hemingway as well ignored using dialogues such “he said”, “She said” and avoided internal or self-monologues. These types of conversation and dialogue left the readers with a development of their own perceived thoughts and feelings that are completely related to the interpretations of the reader.

Conclusion

Therefore, the story is a break thorough that motivates people to represent on men grim and inequality of gender. However, the author’s reflection towards abortion and women as the witness highlighted deeper issue within the generation. There is an instance when the American man exclaims “I have never seen one” which shows that the American man completely discards the idea of child shows that the man is a persistent one where he declines to ponder on keeping the baby. The plot indicates the power of men over women that is obvious in that era. The characteristics in the stories that man has more power of control and authority than the women which has been highlighted by restrictions in time and poor amount of communication in between the couple (Renner). The girl on the other remains silent for a long period, after which the girl disagrees with him in a dispassionate way. This influenced their viewpoint around them as they mind set up was completely different from each other.

The first symbolic objects in the story is the white elephants that symbolism that reflected the non-communicable gap in between the man and the girl. This also represented the difference in their understanding the connotation of white Elephant.  The central metaphor of the reading is that when jig says,” the hills they look like white elephants”. This saying of jog projects problems in to setting where the hills symbolizes jig’s baby bump “white element that is seen as burden as well as valuable gift. The white elephants rather represented their individual outlook on their respective life. Again, she says, “They are lovely, which show that she is opining up her mind to have the baby in the future (Hemingway). This instance reflects her inner turmoil, which is not able to reach decision. There was a time when the woman says, “I wanted to try this new drink. That’s all we do, isn’t it look at things and try new drinks”. At this point of time while saying this, both the man and the woman were thinking about having the abortion or not. Hills like White Elephants this was specific hint that the American fails to understand. Realism in the story

Realism is highlighted in the story through the man and a woman who drinks beer while waiting long for a train to the station. The story presents two young couples who are at crisis in their relationship as things are complicated in their individual life. Close observation on their body language shows their differences in thoughts and the way of responding each other. In this story, the observer is the narrator of the story and the readers have to depend on the narrator for the needful clues. The story somehow highlights the life story of Hemingway himself who was married for almost four times, from which the reader could assume that he had to face problem while seeking for the appropriate women.

The communication in between the sexes highlights the difference in thoughts in between a woman and a man. The line “the girl stood up and walked to the other end of the station. Across on the other side, were the field of grain and tress alongside the bank of Ebro” this shows the corrosive relationship in between the man and the woman which comes once she has come away. Again, the line “the girl looked at the ground of the table legs” which shows that there is silence in between them, which helped her to gather though and gain control over the situation (Hemingway). This also shows that there is no successful communication in their relationship. However, the woman starts depending on the American emotionally shows that she lacked autonomy and power of will while affirming her relationship. Both of them struggle to seek to common opinion while communicating with each other.

Conclusion

From the study it can be said that may be the story Hills like White Elephants is primarily just a conversation in between the man and the women but neither of the characters properly interacts with each other. Resting on a frustrated situation the American man would say anything that could convince the girl to focus on the operation while it is not properly mentioned as abortion. The man says that he loves the girl and manage to convince that every will be same in between them. However, meanwhile the girl opposes the opinions and notions of the man by claiming the she is required to have abortion. Therefore, based on the inequality of gender power the story aroused the attention of reader in a symbolic way.

Reference list and Bibliography

Dobson, Teresa M., et al. "The Interface Implications of Understanding Readers." Interdisciplinary Science Reviews40.1 (2015): 3-16.

Hemingway, Ernest. "Hills Like White Elephants." Mindtap Literature. 2nd ed. N.p.: Cengage, (2016).

Hemingway, Ernest. "Hills like white elephants." Men without women (1927): 39-44.

Hussein, Nagham Ja'far. "The Role of Context in the Interpretation of Ernest Hemingway's" Hills Like White Elephants" in terms of Verschueren's Mental World." Journal of University of Babylon 24.2 (2016): 713-728.

Majeed, Hussein A. Zahra, and Majeed Sahar Ahmed Mohammed. "Two as a Double Rhythmic Movement in Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants." ADAB AL-BASRAH70 (2014): 17-30.

McConn, Matthew. "An Evaluation of Extensive and Intensive Teaching of Literature: One Teacher's Experiment in the 11th Grade." Research in the Teaching of English 51.2 (2016): 162.

Prasanwon, Pisut, and Navaporn Sanprasert Snodin. "A Literary Stylistic Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s Short Stories: What Might be Hiding Beneath Linguistics in the “Big Two-Hearted River” Sequence?." Humanities Journal 23.2 (2016): 272-290.

Renner, Stanley. "Moving to the Girl's Side of'Hills Like White Elephants.'." The Hemingway Review 15.1 (1995): 27-41.