Ernest Hemingway is the ideal of an American fable. rugged. no-nonsense. with personal escapades rivaled merely by those in his groundbreaking fiction. His thin newspaper manner created a literary fad and his success came early and grew until the twenty-four hours he died. In add-on to his canonical novels. Hemingway was besides expert at short fiction. including one merely six-words long. Besides. his male bluster. he besides managed to capture the alienating effects of modern life in his fiction. The modern subjects of abortion. feminism. and disaffection are expressed merely and articulately in “Hills Like White Elephants. ”
In the short narrative “Hills Like White Elephants. ” Hemingway explores modern disaffection in a tense treatment between a twosome waiting for a train. Two Americans in Spain. the adult male is seeking to coerce the adult female into some operation. though it is ne’er revealed what this operation is. Throughout the tense. yet thin conversation. the adult male insists she have the operation. yet the adult female resists. It becomes progressively clear that the operation they discuss may be an abortion. and the tenseness between the two symbolizes something unambiguously modern. Though abortions have been performed for centuries. it remained forbidden until the 20th century.
Hemingway. though ne’er specifically mentioning abortion as the topic in the narrative. displays the estranging consequence it has on relationships and twosomes: “‘It’s truly an terribly simple operation. Jig. ’ the adult male said. ‘It’s non truly an operation at all. ’ The miss looked at the land the tabular array legs rested on. ‘I know you wouldn’t mind it. Jig. It’s truly non anything. It’s merely to allow the air in’” ( Hemingway ) . The adult male refuses to wholly admit the significance of the state of affairs. possibly proposing either his refusal or dismissal of Jig’s function as a adult female worthy of doing her ain determination.
Harmonizing to critic Paul Lankin. “as the adult male persists in opposing the continuation of Jig’s pregnancy. he grossly oversimplifies the issue. even to the point of self-contradiction. naming abortion foremost ‘an terribly simple operation’ and so ‘not truly an operation at all’” ( 234 ) . His dismissive attitude speaks of a former socially acceptable superciliousness by work forces towards adult females during a clip when adult females were frequently treated as 2nd category citizens. This blunt treatment between the adult male and the adult female seems merely possible in modern literature and seems impossible during Victorian times.
The tenseness between the adult male and the miss is tangible in the short narrative. Though they are travellers. absorbing intoxicant and waiting for the train to their following finish. the conversation is filled with implicit in subjects of male laterality and female doggedness. The adult male continuously belittles the girl’s feelings towards the gestation. and his statement includes many efforts at understating the importance. The adult male persistently tries to convert her. even though he seems to sham earnestness in much of his words: “‘Well. ’ the adult male said. ‘if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s absolutely simple’” ( Hemingway ) .
The miss does her best to postulate with the adult male. believing that if she listens to him the relationship will be back to normal. She hides her concern with levity. including her remark about the hills looking like white elephants. It becomes evident that more than fright over the process. the miss is coming to the realisation that her relationship with the adult male is non what she thought it was: “the miss clings to a dream of household and togetherness until the last minute. and eventually decides to give it all up as the needed monetary value of remaining with the man-not knowing. as the reader does. from the many intimations provided by Hemingway. that the adult male is likely to go forth her. even if she goes through with the abortion” ( Hashmi 3 ) .
Her concluding declaration that she is all right is the avowal that a adult male can non order her muliebrity and her life determinations. In the terminal. she becomes the 1 with the strength and wisdom. understanding that the relationship is everlastingly changed. The newfound gulf between the adult male and the miss will be lasting after this episode. representing the subject of disaffection brought by many modern determinations.
Though the adult male believes that the lone manner to continue the comfy relationship is to keep the position quo. even if it means aborting their babe. the adult female disagrees. The American attempts to do himself sound absolutely sensible and rational. but as the duologue continues. it becomes clear that he is both selfish and hypocritical ( “Overview: Hills Like White Elephants” ) .
The couple’s dissension. approximately something every bit monumental as making human life. is a clear mark that they have small that bonds them other than their shallowness. The miss even remarks in the beginning of the narrative how. “That’s all we do. isn’t it – expression at things and seek new drinks? ’” The adult male responds. “I conjecture so” ( Hemingway ) . Subsequently. when the adult male claims that everything will be the same after the abortion and the babe is the lone thing that made them unhappy. it seems like a statement missing all truth.
The really fact that maintaining or aborting a babe is a pick. is a uniquely modern issue. The world of holding to even see it wholly destroys their unworried life style as travellers in Europe. and underlines their beings as lone existences alienated from each other. Ironically. the adult male claims that he merely wants her and no 1 else. but his statements seem insincere.
The miss realizes their disaffection from each other and the felicity they one time knew with the “claim that Europe ‘isn’t ours any longer. ’ which expresses her cognition that such an guiltless return to a secularized American-in-Europe experience of clip is impossible” ( Grant 3 ) . Europe is non theirs to portion. apparently as if enjoyment is besides no longer theirs to portion. The complexness of their modern quandary illustrates the true distance between them.
Hemingway’s narrative is one that could merely be written during modern times. Though non many old ages removed from the Victorian Age. the subjects of abortion. feminine independency. and modern disaffection have continued to repeat throughout the literature of modernness. While short and devoid of drawn-out descriptions. the duologue and important subjects give “Hills Like White Elephants” a permanent power that merely continues to turn as clip goes by.
Plants Cited:
Grant. David. “Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ and the
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Hashmi. Nilofer. “‘Hills Like White Elephants’ : The Jilting Of
Jig. ”The Hemingway Review. Fall 2003. 25 July 2008.
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Anthology of American Literature. Lauter. Paul. 3rdEd. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1998.
“Hills Like White Elephants. ” Short Stories for Students. Vol. 6. The Gale Group. 1999.
Lankin. Paul. “Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants. ”The Explicator. Summer 2005 ; v63.
