Feminist Perspective: Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

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In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants depicts a story in which a young woman is faced with the decision of a questionable surgery, an abortion. The setting of the story is in the early 1920’s between an American couple who are vacationing in Spain, awaiting their train. The discussion of abortion at this time was taboo, illegal, considered immoral and usually dangerous. Sexuality during the 1920’s was very hush, hush and not a subject to be discussed in public. Hemingway brought up the subject of abortion and sex out of wedlock between a couple in a demure way, pioneering a type of writing that addresses this forbidden subject. Even today, the topic of abortion brings on heated debates and discussions. The reactions and differences between the two sexes and how Hemingway portrays them explain the difficulties woman in that era must face regarding the topic of abortion. The entire story is told through dialogue, a conversation between a young girl and man who have a personal relationship. Hemingway portrays the young man as knowledgeable, worldly, rugged and always in control of his life and any given situation, the man’s man. He is the one of the two who is most reasonable and rational. He encourages the young woman to have the abortion, wooing her with his charm and simple explanations about the surgery, “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.” (Hemingway, 2011, line 42). The man in this story patronizes the girl and does not provide sympathy and understanding she needs during this vulnerable time, instead he tries to appease her with thoughts of better times, like a child, “Then what will we do afterward? 
We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before. What makes you think so? That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.” (Hemingway, 2011, line

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