Hemingway shows the reader almost instantly that he is a man, at least in the sense of his knowledge and sense of control. The man doesn’t seem to care about Jig or the unborn child but instead he seems to care about what happens to himself. “I’ll love it. I love it now but I just can’t think about it. You know how I get when I worry,” as if to make her understand his actions through a simple guilt of him worrying (59, Hemingway).
It's just to let the air in” (Hemmingway 3). He is only thinking about himself. Back in this time, 1927, this was a big deal; abortion was illegal, it was very unsafe and could be fatal to the mother of the unborn child (Abortion in 1927). Then he says, “We'll be fine afterwards just like we were before” (Hemmingway 3). He is trying very hard to convince her that this is the best decision.
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.
Through submissive behavior, compliant attitudes and broken egos, each woman struggles to live their lives in accordance to men. In Hemingway's "Hills like White Elephants" a woman or "girl" as titled in the story, is introduced. She is a woman who cannot make a decision without having the approval by the man who's baby she is carrying. The man believes their baby should be aborted, which is suggested throughout the text, while the girl portrays complete indecisiveness about the issue, which is shown through her dependent personality. "What should we drink?
The couple’s location in a train station in a part of Spain where it is “brown and dry” would seem to indicate their journey in life; they are at odds discussing an unwanted pregnancy. The mention of absinthe refers to the man’s desire for the girl to have an abortion. When Jig reaches for
Trauma in Hills Like White Elephants In Ernest Hemmingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, the obvious trauma is the girl’s pregnancy. The man wants her to terminate the pregnancy while she seems to want to have the child. While it is obvious that they do not agree on how to handle the trauma they face, it is left open to the reader’s interpretation what they will decide to do. In the beginning of the story the girl, once referred to as “Jig”, has a playful tone with the man. She says, “They [the hills] look like white elephants”.
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.
Steinbeck leaves her unnamed so she lacks something that makes her appear as an equal individual. She is not meant to be very important in this novel. Curley’s wife is not part of the story to connect with the reader, and by giving her a name, the reader would become much more attached. Curley’s wife is isolated and ignored in Of Mice and Men. She isn’t cared about at all.
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.
That one is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Eve comes along, Adam gives her the same advice. But because females, according to the author, are not intelligent or trustworthy, Eve fails in staying away from the tree. The serpent is the one responsible for tricking Eve. He tells her that the only reason God doesn’t want them to eat from that tree is because he doesn’t want anybody to gain knowledge of things.