The short descriptions of setting may not seem very detailed but combined with dialogues they tell us the true meaning of this three and a half page story. There is a couple waiting for the train. The American and his young girlfriend nicknamed Jig are sitting at a table in the shade, waiting for the train, talking and drinking beer. The whole story centres on a conversation over whether the girl should undergo an abortion or not. Although Hemingway never uses the words “abortion“ or “baby“, we can clearly tell that is all the characters are talking about.
“Hills Like White Elephants” is from a collection of short stories “Men Without Women” by Ernest Hemmingway. It was first published in 1927. The story is about a couple waiting for a train at the train station. The male character is referred as “the American” and his female companion as “the girl” and later “Jig”. The girl is pregnant and the man is trying to insist in a very artful way that she must go for an abortion.
There are not any trees in sight only two distant hills and the woman refers to them as white elephants. They sip on their drinks and through conversation you can conclude that the woman and the man are at odds over her pregnancy. She wants to have the baby, but the man does not. He tries to sway her decision by telling her that the abortion process is simple. “Awfully simple and not really anything.” He wants to keep the lifestyle that they have on track.
Thesis: • Hemingway uses numerous symbols, such as white elephants, the hills, the valley, how simple the operation is, the luggage, and time, in order to demonstrate the huge commitment Jig and the Man must make about the “operation”/abortion. Intro: include the title, and the author • The story, Hills Like White Elephants, describes an experience between a man and a girl named Jig, in the valley of Ebro at a train station. While waiting for the train, the man and Jig discuss numerous things, what should they drink, what the hills look like, but the most important topic they discuss is about a certain “operation”. Hemingway, the author of the story, uses numerous symbols in the story to help the reader better understand the huge dilemma this “operation” will or may cause to both the man and Jig. Section 1: • Topic Sentence: o After only reading the title and the first paragraph, the idea that both the hills and white elephants appear to be symbolizing a certain choice involving something precious yet burdensome.
Taryn Juberien Double Identity Timeline Chapter 1 Bethany, her mom, and her dad were driving hours and hours across unfamiliar states all of a sudden her dad stops at a house. Her dad gets out and walks up to the house and starts to talk to a lady. When he returns, he grabs Bethany’s bags and tells Bethany that she is staying there for now. Chapter 2 As Bethany is sitting inside the house not knowing who she is with or where she is Myrlie starts to talk to her. Bethany wants to cal her dad but when she calls it says the phone is out of service.
Ernest Hemingway fills his story “ Hills Like Whie Elephants” with an assortment of symbols, foreshadows, and visual imagery, that helps represent the conflict of the story. Hemingway uses the scenery “on this side there was no shade and now trees” (Hemingway,1927) then quickly goes to another symbol “between two lies of rails in the sun” (Hemingway, 1927). The lack of shade and two separate tracks symbolizes the couple’s dilemmas and the divide between the two choices they must choose. The visual imagery in this story is simple to understand but its left incomplete. In the story it’s said “hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white” (Hemingway, 1927).
Define observation and inference. After careful reading of Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, it is very clear what it’s purpose is. The story takes place in the Ebro River valley of Spain, where an American man and his female companion Jig are waiting for a train and having drinks discussing “doing it”. Obviously, by “doing it”, they’re referring to whether or not they should have an abortion. At the end of the story, we can only assume that they decide to go through with the abortion, when Jig tells the American male “I don’t care about me.” The man goes and haves a drink by himself and return to his companion.
The story is set in a bar beside a train station. A woman and an American man sit together at a table discussing something that is unknown to the reader. The couple is enjoying a beer while awaiting their train. The young woman seems disconnected as she looks out over a line of hills and says, "They look like white elephants". The American discounts the young woman’s remark and keeps drinking (Napierkowski, par.
The Decision to Grow Up In Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” we are shown how fragile a relationship between two lovers is once reality sets in. Hemingway puts us at a “train station between two sets of tracks in the sun.” The sun seems to represent reality and the bright light of day that we are all faced with at some point in our lives. The man chooses to sit in the warm shadow of the building, perhaps to block out the light of the reality that he and Jig are facing, the choice of how to handle this unwanted pregnancy. At this train station there is a bar and when alcohol is mixed with the shadows the man is able to find comfort from the sun and the ever-present choice that he must deal with in the event that Jig chooses to keep the baby. Jig is referred to as a girl, but she is in fact a young woman faced with the problem many young women find themselves faced with.
As the couple waits between two destinations, Barcelona and Madrid, they are trapped "between two lines of rail in the sun"( ) as if they were in limbo. The station, placed between the two lines of rails, suggests the two directions the couple may go - toward Madrid and the abortion or away from Madrid and to a family scenario. The landscape describes the situation both barren and fruitful. The barren side of the train station describes Jig’s life is she submits to what her partner wants: an abortion. The other side of the train station is green, luscious and fruitful like her womb if she reaches full term and gives birth to her child.