Ernest Hemingway
The tragic and comic of “Hills Like White elephants.”
Is abortion a solution in a relationship? Or is it a way to free oneself from the responsibility of being a parent? In “hills like white elephants,” closer examination shows that Hemingway writes this shorts story to let us know his relationship was with his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. He uses abortion as a metaphor for threats to his relationship with Pauline. Throughout the story, the word abortion was never seen; however, the reader clearly knows what the couple is talking about, or what the discussion in throughout the story. The unmentioned abortion in “Hills like White elephants” is both a metaphor for the fate of the protagonist ‘love affair and an allegorical vehicle for Hemingway’s response to a series of terminated relationships in his life.
Hemingway has had a lot of failed relationships before self-inflicted a gunshot wound into his skull and later died. Hemingway begins to see his wife in the same way the Americans see the pregnant jig, as a woman who imposes restraints and limited his freedom. He thinks he could continue to write and travel around the world without restraints. This careless life; however, was threatened by Hadley’s pregnancy. Hemingway’s goal was to travel from country to country to do what he always liked to do which was writing. He devotes himself to writing throughout his lifetime. He does not like to take the responsibility of parenting, so he ended up marring a lot of woman throughout his lifetime.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois at eight o’clock in the morning. He was the second son of Dr. Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway’s six children; he had four sisters and a half-brother. Hemingway’s career was nourished by the twentieth century’s major cultural and political events, including World War I, the Spanish civil war, and the flourishing of the arts in Paris in the 1920’s. Like many American writers, Hemingway worked originally as a newspaper reporter. He also fought in Italy during World war I, was wounded, and used his war experiences in his early book of “ series and sketches (1925), and in his novel” a farewell to arms (1929). He lived in Paris, where he met Gertrude stein and Ezra Pound. An avid sportsman and a big game hunter, Hemingway reveled in competition and pursuits that pitted him against nature. His direct and unadorned writing style has been much intimidated by subsequent writers. Hemingway has written many short stories such as: hills like white elephants, the sun also rises, across the river and the see, a farewell to arms, just to name a few. He married his first wife Elizabeth Hadley Richardson on September 3, 1921, and they had their first son, John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway also known as Jack. Hemingway died on July 2, 1961, some three weeks short of his 62nd birthday. He killed himself by self-inflicting a gunshot wound to the head and he was later buried in a Roman Catholic service.
“Hills like white elephants” is what Hemingway uses to portray himself as similarly to that of the story’s protagonist. The story is set in a bar beside train station. Jig, the antagonist of the story, seems disconnected as she looks out over a line of hills and says,” they look like white elephants” (Hemingway 563). This statement and the title are symbolic to the meaning of the story. One must know that if one is given a white elephant then they are given an unwanted and useless gif (Lewis1). That is what the couple is confronting at the heart of “Hills like white elephants.” The couple continues drinking beer heavily which would lead one to believe that they have something troubling them throughout the story.
The analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like white elephants” is the debate over whether or not jig, the story’s antagonist, will carry her pregnancy to term and the search for biographical experiences that may have inspired and influenced the story. Critics continue to disagree over the fate of jig’s unborn baby. Timothy O’Brien sees the outcome of the couple’s journey as “bleak and infertile” (Wyche 1). Their destination of Madrid is ironic because of the name’s similarly to Madre; the Spanish word for mother will be the site of the artificial intervention advocated by the male.
According to Thomas Maher Gilligan, he suggests that she shifting of the baggage from one side of the station by the American man indicates that the couple reconsiders, decides to go to Barcelona instead, and also decides to allow the pregnancy to continue. For him, the shadow of cloud emphasizes jig’s awareness of how little communication exists between herself and her companion (Wyche 1). Kenneth Johnson interprets the cloud shadow that jig sees moving over the fertile grain field as foreshadowing the death of her unborn child. The outcome of the protagonist’s love affair; however, is less controversial. Critics, who foresee abortion, and those who do not, tend to agree that jig and the American will no longer remain a couple. Wyche regards the American attitudes as “ominous” an indication of “some future dissolution of their relationship.” Jig is both well aware that the intrusion of a child will send the man packing and certain that their relationship will be radically altered, perhaps destroyed, if she goes through with the abortion.
Jig’s decision to continue with the pregnancy or get it terminated will rely on a metaphor, but regard the abortion literally as the way the narrator explains it in the story. Abortion is considered solely as a factual prospect, even though virtually every other element of “Hills like white elephants,” looks at things and tries new drinks” ( Hemingway564). The station is situated between two sets of rails, whose significance lies in their figurative implications, and between two contrasting landscapes that symbolize the couple’s options. On the other side are the “Hills on the dry side of the valley” (Hemingway563), which are long and white, inspiring jig’s titular simile; and on the other are fields of grain and trees along the banks of Ebro” (563). The setting clearly shows that jig’s choice between sterility and fertility.
The character’s movements indicate the movement of mind. The Americans anonymity renders him symbolic of an American male attitude in general. Jig’s nickname carries sexual and mechanical implications. Her pregnancy is an apt metaphor for the life she has lived with the American. Throughout the story, one can count that the couple asks a lot of trading questions which demand a good response from each other. Mush of the dialogue in “Hills like white elephants” is a trading of questions and answers in which jig asks a total of seventeen questions, thirteen of which polar, yes or no questions kind of thing. The man only asks for four questions, three of which he does not ask until the test is nearly finished (link2). Jig always articulates her desires as requests, using forms of the modal terms” could”. The text depicts the couple’s relationship as one in which the man is positioned as an authority, and jig’s question both challenges that authority and seeks reassurance from it. Authority shifts briefly from the man to jig when she says” and we could have everything and every day we made more impossible” (link2). He has to ask” what did you say” and she defines the operation’s consequences for him, that they cannot have everything. On a different perspective, authority shifts back to the man when refuses to stop talking, and jig final question asks permission to end the conservation. In her inability to demand an end, she can only threaten to scream.
The American man, the antagonist character, uses everything he can to force the girl, jig to have their first child aborted. Sentences repeated in the text include seven variations on a conditional questions asked by jig, if ‘afterward” the couple can be as happy as they were before the operation was necessary. The final repetition is distinguished from its predecessors because it is declarative statement.” And I ‘ll do it and everything will be fine” (Hemingway564). Jig then answers her own question and predicting that “everything will be fine” suggest that despite her reluctance, the man’s persuasion is succeeding. The man repeats six variations in the text by saying” I don’t want you to do it if you feel that way.” This alters and further specifies the conditions he sets foe allowing her refusal. He requires that she “cares about herself. And the fifth interruptions repetition begins with an adversative conjunction phrase, emphasizes the man’s persistence and power to change the conditions of the agreements, as well as jig’s reluctance or inability to want or feel as he directs. Every moment he tries to say something; he always uses the word “but” to set up a condition from the get to. The girl, despite her reluctance, is always agreeing whit whatever decisions the man comes up with.
Hemingway writes this short story to portray himself as the American and the girl, so one can clearly get an insight of what he has been through in his life. His relationship was the same with his first wife, Pauline Pfeiffer. He wants Pauline to abort their first son as a way to free himself from responsibility of being a father. According to Nagel, When Hemingway’s first wife, Pauline, because pregnant in 1923, he complained that he was not ready for the responsibility of parenthood and the impositions of his time that a child would represent (Nagel1). From the way the story ends, one can clearly point out that the girl did have the abortion do to the fact that she drinks what her partner tells her to drink. Throughout “Hills like white elephants,” one can clearly see that Hemingway really wants to travel around the world doing what he does best which is writing; however, he does not like the responsibility of having a child in his life. He believes the child will hold him back from pursuing his dream. The best way for Hemingway to free himself from this burden is to have Pauline, his wife, abort the child. No matter how hard life maybe, once a child is inside his mother’s womb, that mother has to keep that child for no one will know what that child will become in life. Take care of what one has for no one knows what tomorrow will bring.
Work Cited
Benson, Jackson. J. Ernest Hemingway: New Critical Approaches to the short stories of Ernest Hemingway. Durham and London: Durham,1990.
Henningfeld, Diane Andrews. “Hills Like White Elephants.” Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420022890&v=2.1&u=lincclin_ircc&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
Link, Alex. “Staking Everything on It: A Stylistic Analysis of Linguistic Patterns in ‘Hills Like White Elephants.’.” The Hemingway Review 23.2 (Spring 2004): 66-74. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 203. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420083008&v=2.1&u=lincclin_ircc&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
Nagel, James. “Hills Like White Elephants: Overview.” Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Ed. Noelle Watson. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420003898&v=2.1&u=lincclin_ircc&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
Rankin, Paul. “Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants.’.” Explicator 63.4 (Summer 2005): 234-237. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420088199&v=2.1&u=lincclin_ircc&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
Weeks, Lewis E., Jr. “Hemingway Hills: Symbolism in ‘Hills like White Elephants’.” Studies in Short Fiction 17.1 (Winter 1980): 75-77. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420022892&v=2.1&u=lincclin_ircc&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
Wyche, David. “Letting the air into a relationship: metaphorical abortion in `Hills Like White Elephants’.” The Hemingway Review 22.1 (2002): 56+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA94775662&v=2.1&u=lincclin_ircc&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
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Ernest Hemingway 