The male character is dominant, defensive and hypocritical and the female character is pendent and is incapable of voting for her decision. In the story the man persistently tells her to abort the child but never uses the word abortion. He keeps on giving more like hypnotic suggestions that she must abort the child because it’s a very simple operation. He is hypocritical because he keeps on saying – “But I don’t want you to do if you didn’t want to”. He says that he doesn’t need a baby in their life - “That’s the only thing that bothers us.
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.
Paper One Literal meaning of “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway The story starts off with a detailed description of a train station surrounded by white hills, grassy fields, and trees in Spain. An unnamed man and his girlfriend are sitting at a table in a bar outside the station. They are waiting for a train to Madrid. The weather was very hot, and the man decides to order two beers from the female bartender. The girlfriend says that the hills in the distance look like white elephants, which the man says that he has not seen one.
Since Martha never mentions the war in her letters, it becomes easy for him to imagine her as a symbol of love outside of the war. Although Martha does not return his affection, he continues to love her because he can not stop loving all that she represents to him. Martha returns in the next chapter, as Cross explains his interactions with Martha after the war. As he tries to hold her hand and proclaim his love for her, she is tragically indifferent, and it
Her family is the only Korean family in Plainfield, and she doesn’t want to stand out as being “weird and Asian.” She wants to do “a nice, normal, All-American, red-white-and-blue kind of project.” Patrick knows that Julia is upset, but he doesn’t know why. Instead of telling him, she is hopeful that it will be very difficult to raise silkworms where they live, and they won’t be able to do the project. Julia continues to argue with her brother. Chapter 3-B Julia complains to Ms. Park about all the terrible things that are happening to her. Ms. Park points out that the main character has to have a problem or two, or there wouldn’t be a story.
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.
My favorite verse from that section was Exodus 21:22-25. I had never heard of the premature fine or retaliation and it is very interesting because it does paint a perfect picture that even in biblical times it was not okay to abort. My favorite part from the philosophical section was when they talked about quality of life as a reason for abortion. I liked the example the article gave of May, Jesus’s mother. She was poor and had a baby that was not her husbands, yet she decided to keep it and it was the savior of the world.
She has lowered herself expectations in life to satisfy someone else’s. Another excerpt from this story that I would like to view is “Well, the man said, “If you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.” She has listened to him try and rationalizes the “easy” procedure of an abortion. Like, how would he know?
2. (A) The phrase “white elephant” is a term that is used to describe an object a person owns but cannot get rid of or disregard, this item is expensive and hard to maintain in comparison to its use or value. (B) This phrase is very significant to the underlying meaning of the conversation between the man and the girl. The term “white elephant” seems to be an obscure term that we don’t initially understand how significant it truly is. Jig comments of the hills and how they resemble white elephants there is an underlying point she is trying to bring up.
However, the reader only knows this due to inference and deduction. The story, told in third person without a clear narrator, plays out without the true subject matter ever being spoken. The characters reveal very little in the way of background or history and they are only referred to as “Jig” (or “the girl”) and “the American”. We never come across the words “baby” or “abortion,” (referring to them instead as a thing that is making the two people unhappy and an “operation,” respectively) yet the obscured meaning is very easily inferred. She wants to carry this child to term, give birth and raise him or her – or at the very least is afraid of how she’ll feel if she doesn’t get that chance.