Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ Analysis

Miscommunication
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” is an intense story that depicts a couple at a crisis point in a relationship as they try to work out their problems. It is paramount that the story takes place at a train station in Spain They argue openly in public, trying to establish communication to each other’s antagonistic views on the future of their relationship should take. The story itself ends without any hint of a reasonable solution, the reader never knows how or if they manage to find prevalent ground they stand on with the problems that have surfaced. A close reading of the text reveals all kinds of delusions and misconceptions, which both distract the reader and engage in communication in the short tail. Hemingway displays a cunning theme of the inability to communicate effectively within a relationship, along with hints to a few smaller themes such as evasion of responsibility, that aid the main theme. Hemingway uses literary elements such as tone, similes, metaphors, and an abundance of symbols to convey the story.

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Hemingway uses tone to push the theme of communication in the story. The narrator is very controlled, giving the reader a glimpse of information outside of the conversations between the American and the girl; even among the American and the Bartender accommodating the drinks for that matter. Hemingway controls the propensity in the narrator’s way to tell what the story brings forth. Hemingway does this to allow the readers thinking to be perspicacious, but can withal make for rough reading. He uses different tones ranging from relaxing to distraught tunes in the dialog to allow the story to develop, yet, leaving the reader disoriented and left to critically think about what is being said in the story.
Both the girl and the American are having a very relaxed and controlled conversation. Keep in mind that they are having this conversation in a public place that might or might not contribute to this control. Even in today’s society, talking about topics such as sexual intercourse, abortion, or relational ties, some might exercise some form of control when verbalizing about these intimate details in public.
“While the two are talking, they seem to almost lose that control at points in the conversation and becomes a distraught tone, like when the woman frantically says:
“please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking”(224). Later on when the American states, “I might have. Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything” (224)
The girl insinuates that he’s not well peregrinated enough to have visually discerned white elephants. At this point the conversation starts to lose traction and they start to lose control” of the situation. Though they are both able to get their somewhat respective stances across; neither of them are able to articulate why they feel the way they do without explanation. As a result, they both feel threatened, incriminated, and misunderstood. This transitions the tone from distraught, to a somewhat somber yet dejected tone; which is what the reader can visually perceive at the end of the story: “Do you feel better?” he asked. “I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.” (225)
Since they can’t get past what they desire, to verbalize about why they desire it, there is a consummate communication breakdown. In a sense, both the girl and the American talk, but neither of them listen to each other or care to look at the problem from the other person’s point of view.
“Hills Like White Elephants” is comprehensive of similes and metaphors because the language is throughout void of the words “abortion” and “baby” whereas that’s all the characters are verbalizing of. For instance, at the station, the girl comments that the Anis Del Toro tastes like licorice, and also the man verbalizes that’s the manner with everything, to that the girl replies
“Everything tastes of licorice. particularly all the items you’ve waited farewell for, like absinthe.” the American then replies, “Cut it out,”(222)
Rather a full of life reaction to a seemingly innocuous comment. it’s potential that “absinthe” stands for one factor, to the couple that the reader is not cognizant of, but it’s additionally, potential that the lady is touching on but she has waited her whole life to induce maternity and have a baby but presently it has been spoiled for her by the American. Ultimately, the American’s ammunition throughout this verbal duel with the lady is that the flexibility to form the affiliation emotionally hostile to her, as proven by his reactions to her comments regarding the appearance of the hills and conjointly the indisputable fact that everything she waits for tastes like licorice. Hemingway implies the girl is additional showing emotion invested at intervals the connection that for the American is clearly for the most part regarding sex.
Hemingway utilizes symbols and their meanings over the girl’s artistic ability, as she looks to look at and licitly order higher than what she has. The accepted of the hills, coveting like white elephants could also be a robust picture; a white elephant is “a possession that’s unutilizable or extreme, principally one that’s precious to carry up or intense to kill.”
The hills and the mountains being printed as white elephants may move mind the image of a pregnant abdomen. The young girl is outlined as sitting on “this side of the station,” “with its white slopes and tan” (221), dry nation. This aspect shows the value of an innocent life, as associate outcome of it looks dead. On the flip side, when she stands up and peregrinates to “the supplementary aspect of the station,” she externally sees fields of green grass, delicious trees on the banks of the river, and also the massifs on the to date perspective the watercourse, thus representing the value of life and wanting to keep the child instead of getting an abortion. a tragic remnant of a cloud moves over the world of grain that might name the winnow she confronts, the transient pessimism in what may perhaps be associate united choose, or not turning into the premature birth. She externally sees “the watercourse over the trees,”(221) but, that proposes she’s attending to grip the subsistence, the attractiveness, on the substance of it simply on the to date perspective her seizing.
The station has many elements to explore. The station is Associated closely to that of Island in the middle of the ocean. It sits center of all these rail road tracks. If viewed from on prime of, the station would seem to be penned by tracks, rather sort of a baby would be contained at intervals a mother.
The shade recommends an advertisement between time respites from the sun, astonishingly so much uniform to reckoning a train could also be associate alleviation from the travel. The snappiness of their conversation is on the amount, whereas others were within the bar “sitting tight presumably for the train.” This discriminatingly indicates that the young person is hardline. Bamboo has been nonetheless vacant, so if a cross serving of bamboo is investigated, it’s a spherical. This might encapsulate the uterus, vacuous. In spite of the means that if a string is see over bamboo, its “filled,” torrential unvaried to a pregnant abdomen ought to be. The wrap had Anis del Toro painted thence as embellishment, adequate, as an example, this current couple’s legitimacy ought to appear, by all accounts, to be expeditiously numerous to associate within the outside spectator. The wrap blows confining the table, as if it’s associate proof of the young girl of the choice she got to have an effect on.
Exactly once the rule of potation are doled out on the table by the server, they are resolved to gain pads and started drinking to distract themselves from the argument. By the amount the third globe of potation is scattered, the liners are saturated. They did not block the wet from physically incoming at the table. This might be run of the mill of birth prevention floundering, but in a very venue of while not a doubt a table procuring wet, the young person becomes pregnant. As a conclusion of the birth prevention battling, the American and also the young person become into this discord in this not one or the opposite one among them will assent close-by the others membrane begin. When the quality of three rounds of potation square measure apportioned on the table by the server, they are bent on to gain pads. Being consequently sultry, the glasses sweat. They did not deflect the soaked from physically incoming at the table. This might be run of the mill of birth prevention slumping, but in a very zone of definitely a table obtaining wet, the young person becomes pregnant. As a consequence of the birth prevention battling, the American and also the young person become into this conflict in this not one or the opposite one among them will concur adjacent the others acknowledge starting.
Hemingway uses literary devices such as tone, similes, metaphors, and symbols to approach the reader at a different approach of analyzing a story. Hemingway uses these literary devices to trick the reader into thinking about a story when the story itself is encoded to be something completely hidden from the text, which in this case the hidden conversation was about abortion. Communication is a huge part in many places ranging from workplaces and also relationships. Without communication things fail and will not progress forward.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” Perrine’s Story and Structure: An
Introduction to Fiction. Ed. Greg Johnson and Thomas R. Arp. 14th ed. Stamford CT: Cengage 2015. 221-225 Print.