Hills Like White Elephants Literary Analysis

Hills Like White Elephants Commentary

Hills Like White Elephants tells the story of a woman, Jig, and a man known only as the American, sitting in a train station. Though the story is brief, it has much to say. When reading the story for the first time its full effect doesn’t set in. By taking a closer look and rereading the story, a bigger situation is revealed other than what seems to be a dull conversation. Jig is pregnant and the American man is pressuring her into having an abortion. The little details in the story, some which may slip by you, symbolize the man and woman's situation. The story takes place in a train station in Spain. The whole story is set around Jig and the American man waiting on the train to arrive. But it isn’t
For example when reading Hills Like White Elephants the waitress puts the drinks down on felt pads. When reading it’s for the first time, the felt pads are just coasters and the drink is just a drink. But when rereading the short story the felt pads represent more, they symbolize an intake of feelings, thoughts and personal opinions. And what seems to be a simple alcoholic drink can be interpreted as bottled up emotions. “The woman brought out two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and the girl.” A coasters purpose is to catch the drips of water that condensates from cold beverages. In this case the drips that came from the cold beer can represent all the emotions that Jig and the man were feeling about their situation that were finally released during their conversation. All those emotions and thought were captured and soaked up by the felt pad. By the end “the woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads.” The felt pad represents how Jig and the American man intake each others feelings. The felt pads are damp in the end because so many emotions were taken