Hills Like White Elephants
The story about the Hill Like White Elephants
Madisine H. Jones ENG. 125: Introduction to Literature Introduction: Prof. Kissel
Date: August 12,2014
The story about the Hill Like White Elephants
“ Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was the first published in August 1927, in the Literary transition,than later in the 1927 short story collection Men without Woman. The story takes place at a train station in the Ebro River valley of Spain. This particular day is oppressively hot and dry, and the scenery in valley is barren …show more content…
From the outset of the story, the contentious nature of the couple 's conversation indicates resentment and unease. Some critics have written that the dialogue is a distillation of the contrasts between stereotypical male and female relationship roles: in the excerpt above, for instance, the girl draws the comparison with white elephants, but the hyper-rational male immediately denies it, dissolving the bit of poetry into objective realism with "I 've never seen one." By saying, "No, you wouldn 't have" she implies he hadn 't had a child before, or hadn 't allowed birth in the past. She also asks his permission to order a drink. Throughout the story, the girl is distant; the American is rational. While the American attempts to frame the fetus as the source of the couple 's discontent with life and one another, the tone and pattern of dialogue indicate that there may be deeper problems with the relationship than the purely circumstantial. This ambiguity leaves a good deal of room for interpretation; while most critics have espoused relatively straightforward interpretations of the dialogue (with the girl as the dynamic character, traveling reluctantly from rejection to acceptance of the idea of an abortion), a few have argued for alternate scenarios based upon the same dialogue. Another
Madisine H. Jones ENG. 125: Introduction to Literature Introduction: Prof. Kissel
Date: August 12,2014
The story about the Hill Like White Elephants
“ Hills Like White Elephants” is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was the first published in August 1927, in the Literary transition,than later in the 1927 short story collection Men without Woman. The story takes place at a train station in the Ebro River valley of Spain. This particular day is oppressively hot and dry, and the scenery in valley is barren …show more content…
From the outset of the story, the contentious nature of the couple 's conversation indicates resentment and unease. Some critics have written that the dialogue is a distillation of the contrasts between stereotypical male and female relationship roles: in the excerpt above, for instance, the girl draws the comparison with white elephants, but the hyper-rational male immediately denies it, dissolving the bit of poetry into objective realism with "I 've never seen one." By saying, "No, you wouldn 't have" she implies he hadn 't had a child before, or hadn 't allowed birth in the past. She also asks his permission to order a drink. Throughout the story, the girl is distant; the American is rational. While the American attempts to frame the fetus as the source of the couple 's discontent with life and one another, the tone and pattern of dialogue indicate that there may be deeper problems with the relationship than the purely circumstantial. This ambiguity leaves a good deal of room for interpretation; while most critics have espoused relatively straightforward interpretations of the dialogue (with the girl as the dynamic character, traveling reluctantly from rejection to acceptance of the idea of an abortion), a few have argued for alternate scenarios based upon the same dialogue. Another