“Hills Like White Elephants” is one of my favorite Ernest Hemingway short stories because it is filled with multiple themes and hidden meanings. There are three major themes that can be inferred when reading the story: gender roles, white elephants, and of course Hemmingway’s infamous ice-burg theory. When talking about gender roles, it is apparent that the man in the story is the controlling figure when he decides what and when they will drink as well as constantly imposing his own feelings on the female character. The female in the story is obviously more mature than the male but is undermined by the pet names that the man calls her (“jig”) and even by Hemingway himself who always refers to the male as “the man” and the female as “the girl.” Even though the man is trying to seem like he cares what the girl wants it is apparent that he just wants her to have the operation for his own selfish reasons. This places the girl in a position of power because she is the one who gets to have the last word on whether she will keep the baby or not. The symbol of the white elephant can have many different connotations. An elephant in the room is always said to be a child and the elephant represent fertility in Hinduism. The ice-burg theory is definitely implemented in this story because Hemingway never explicitly says the subject of the man and the girl’s discussion, the meaning is imbedded within the conscious, preconscious, and subconscious elements of the story. The clouded situation that the man and the women seem to be in never gets resolved in the end. The readers are left to question whether or not the girl crumbles under the man’s control or if she stays true to her own morals and keeps the baby.
I really enjoyed this story, especially Hemingway’s way of writing. After my first time reading it, I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. When I looked more into it, I came to appreciate the style of writing and the underlying meanings. The ending is not 100% clear which was great for class discussions!
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed the style in which this piece was written-it forced me to actually think about the story, and I had to analyze it to understand it. When reading Hemingway's works, it is very easy to see his point about the beauty of leaving 7/8 of the story unwritten, for I think that his simple writing style is much more poignant than that of many authors who use details excessively. The ambiguity in the end of the story is also one of its strongest points, in my opinion, because it once again forces the reader to interpret the story as a whole. Hemingway does not give us the story word for word, but instead implies it through the simplicity of his writing.
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