Elephants Essay, Research Paper
A Literary Criticism of “Hills Like White Elephants”
I recently read the short story, “Hills Like White Elephants”. Initially, I found it confusing and hard to understand. I hope to clarify the story by summarizing it, and explain the symbolism used.
The story is set in a bar beside a train station. A couple sits together at a table discussing something that is unknown to the reader. The couple is enjoying a beer while awaiting their train. The young woman seems disconnected as she looks out over a line of hills and says, “They look like white elephants”. This statement should set off an alarm in the mind of the reader. 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 gift. This leads the reader to believe that this is what the story is about. The couple continues to drink heavily which would also lead one to believe that they have something troubling them. As one continues reading, they are presented with a clue to the couple’s problem. The man says, “You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it”. He goes on to say, “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 it’s perfectly simple”. This leads the reader to believe that, although it is the couple’s problem, the woman holds all responsibility and the right to make the decision. The man and woman go back and forth with the argument. The man says things to the effect of, ” I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to”. She replies, “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” Again, this gives the reader the opinion that her decision, and her decision alone, will alter their life forever. As the story closes, she asks that they terminate the conversation. He takes their luggage to the other side of the train to assure that it is loaded on board, and then he return to the table. “Do you feel better?” he asks. She replies, “I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine”.
Throughout the story the couple refuses to speak of the problem. They refuse to speak of it for fear that actually saying it would be admitting that there actually is a problem. The couple is struggling over the decision of whether or not to abort their unborn child. The reference to white elephants symbolizes the abortion. Many years ago people would give miniature white elephants as gifts. They served no function and were considered unwanted, useless gifts. The abortion was an unwanted gift to this couple. The man continues to reassure the woman that the problem can easily be taken care of. One gets the feeling from the couple’s conversation that she may want to keep their unborn child, but she would do anything for him; anything to keep him.
I really enjoyed this short story. I liked how Ernest Hemingway allowed the reader to ponder what the couple was arguing about. I hope this gives some insight to those who struggle with understanding this short story.
The writing produced by Ernest Hemingway was in itself an act of rebellion that personifies the unique character of how Americans want or believe they should be perceived — brash, self-sufficient, able to move beyond what most people would presumably consider personal setbacks, even the ability to detach one’s self from personal tragedy and see it in a humorous light. Ernest Hemingway was as simple as he was complex. The lucid and uncomplicated images he created with his seemingly elementary style were anything but; in fact, the complexity that resides within his characteristically eloquent prose, which demonstrate a purity and precision like no other, are known only to those who can see beyond their fa?ade. Attention to outer detail and an unquenchable desire to portray his inner pain, Hemingway favored a more simplistic approach to convey his view of women, portraying obvious empathy for his female characters, while his male characters and protagonists appear to be more self-absorbed. In viewing the male/female relationships, as well as how men and women are depicted in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” “Up in Michigan” and “A Canary for One,”
Другие работы по теме:
Hills Like White ElephantE Essay Research Paper
Hills Like White Elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a story that takes place in Spain while a man and woman wait for a train. The story is set up as a dialogue between the two, in which the man is trying to convince the woman to do something she is hesitant in doing. Through out the story, Hemingway uses metaphors to express the characters? opinions and feelings.
Hunting The WhiteTail Deer Essay Research Paper
Hunting the White-Tail Deer It is a freezing twenty-two degrees outside. Even though it is still too dark to see, as you look over the hills, you see a breathtaking sunrise that will soon creep through the heavy fog. Every breath that you take is like smoke coming out of a dragon s nostrils. As you are waiting patiently, still, and quietly, you finally see your kill, the white-tail deer.
A Brief Overview Of Feminism Essay Research
Paper Feminism can be roughly described as a movement that seeks to enhance the quality of women’s lives by impacting the norms and moves of a society based on male dominance and subsequent female subordination. Although feminist literary writings began to gain popularity in the 20th century, feminist characters have been around for ages. “Feminist criticism’s self transformations over the past several decades as it engages with both critiques from within and encounters from without- encounters with psychoanalysis, Marxism, Post-Structuralisms, ethnic studies, post-colonial theory, and lesbian and gay studies- have produced a complex proliferation of work not easily subsumed to a single description. (Rivkin 527)”.
Greek Actors Essay Research Paper GREEK DRAMA
Greek Actors Essay, Research Paper GREEK DRAMA: the actors The actors in ancient tragedies were hired and paid by the state and assigned to the tragic poets probably by lot. By the middle of the fifth century three actors were required for the performance of a tragedy. In descending order of importance of the roles they assumed they were called protagonist first actor (a term also applied in modern literary criticism to the central character of a play), Dueteragonist second actor and tritagonist third actor .
Owen An Anotated Bibliography Essay Research Paper
OWEN: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Benet, W.R. ?Literary Support?. The London Times 6 January 1921: P. 6. This article criticizes Owen?s non-combatant attitude of the war. He disagrees with Owen fighting the war and then writing protesting poems against it.
Bible And The Word
“Inspire” Essay, Research Paper The Bible and the Word “Inspire” According to the Random House Dictionary, the word inspire means “to infuse an animating, quickening, or exalting influence into, or to communicate or suggest
Narrative Shift Hemingway Essay Research Paper Narrative
Narrative Shift -Hemingway Essay, Research Paper Narrative Shift Hemingway s characters often turn to primitive rituals for comfort. (Donaldson, Vol. 13 in Literary Criticism) It is at this primitive point in each character when Hemingway employs a narrative shift or shifting the narrator s description through another characters point of view.
Ernest Hemingway 2 Essay Research Paper A
Ernest Hemingway 2 Essay, Research Paper A person can easily recognize Ernest Hemingway s writing style by his simple sentence structure, clear dialogue, and the hopelessness of his characters. Soldier s Home , Hills Like White Elephants , and A Clean well-Lighted Place are perfect examples of three short stories that easily define his unique style.
Reader Response Theory And The Restrictive Nature
Of Freedom Essay, Research Paper During the mid twentieth century, the literary community witnessed the descent of the New Criticism and the emergence of the reader response movement. The reader response movement sharply contrasts the theories of New Criticism in that it focuses on the importance of the reader in the creation of the literary experience.
Questions On
“Hills Like White Elephants” By Ernest Hemingway Essay, Research Paper Reading: Hills Like White Elephants/Ernest Hemingway 1. What are they talking about? (Evidence…)
Hills Like White Elephants 2 Essay Research
Paper Communication Issues and Conflicts in “Hills Like White Elephants,” “Daisy Miller,” and “Queer” The charaters in “Hills Like White Elephants,” “Daisy Miller,” and “Babylon Revisited” all communniacte with one another in very diffrent ways. The way the Daisy spoke to Winterborne, is diffrent from the way that The man spoke to Jig.
Underlying Meanings In
“Hills Like White Elephants” Essay, Research Paper Underlying Meanings Within “Hills Like White Elephants” Though “Hills Like White Elephant,” by Earnest Hemingway, is mostly composed of a dialog between two people, the reader may learn a great deal about the characters and the meaning of the story indirectly through symbolism, word clues, and tone.
Interpretations Of Hills Like White Elephants
Essay, Research Paper Interpretations of Hills Like White Elephants The woman in the story realizes a lot about her husband in the story. He got her pregnant and they were deciding on having an abortion or not to have an abortion. Ernest Hemingway sort of hid this in his story. He does not say in his story that they are talking about an abortion and if the reader does not catch this the story does not make much sense.
Ernest Hemingway Thesis Paper Essay Research Paper
Thesis Ernest Hemingway?s writing style mirrored the way he lived his own life. Ernest lived the way he wrote creating situations, setting scenes and events leading to their consequences. Hemingway leaves morals and conclusions to the reader. In his short story, Hills like White Elephants these writing characteristics can be illustrated by the following outline.
Literary Criticism In Canterbury Tales Essay Research
Paper There are numerous sources of literary criticism of The Canterbury Tales, as well as specifically about “The Miller’s Tale.” “Telling stories of low sexual intrigue (fabliaux)…There is nothing like [these tales] in Middle English and nothing like [these tales] anywhere in English literature” (Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, 172).
Hamlet Criticism Essay Research Paper In
Hamlet Criticism Essay, Research Paper In Hamlet ; Literary Remains, Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes Hamlet as an intricate planner who s thought process is slow and methodical. He describes Hamlet as someone having Supercilious activities of the mind, which, unseated from its healthy relation, is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted from the world without throwing a mist over all common-place actualities.
Sula Containment Essay Research Paper SULA Containment
Sula :Containment Essay, Research Paper SULA: Containment Essay In Sula the idea of containment is used a lot in the story and in how the characters live there lives. There is the idea of containment at the very beginning of the book when the white farmer tricks his servant to living in the top of the hills therefore containing him from the rest of the people.
Elwyn Brooks White Essay Research Paper Elwyn
Elwyn Brooks White Essay, Research Paper Elwyn Brooks White was an American author. He wrote to influence people?s lives. Everyone who was lucky enough to pick up one of his writings never walked away without benefiting from
Ernest Hemingway Essay Essay Research Paper Final
Ernest Hemingway Essay Essay, Research Paper Final Draft Hemingway Essay A good writer s objective is to say as much as possible as briefly as possible. This enables the thinking about the implications of the word s presented. Ernest Hemingway explained this idea in his iceberg theory of writing fiction in an interview for Paris Review: If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg.
Analysis Of Hills Like White Elephants Ernest Hemi
Essay, Research Paper ANALYSIS OF HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS/ERNEST HEMINGWAY The most striking feature of this short story is the way in which it is told. It is not a story in the classical sense with an introduction, a development of the story and an end, but we just get some time in the life of two people. The story doesn’t give everything away for the reader; we only see the surface of what is going on.
Analysis Of Hills Like White Elephants Essay
, Research Paper ANALYSIS OF HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS David Kenison English 301 – 01 St?phanie Zuk September 14th 2000 Who is the boss? Society is pressuring people so much to succeed in life and to become someone they can not be, that people act in any way they can to reach this goal. Often, they use power and domination to show that they are important and can influence the world.
Crime And Punishment Essay Research Paper In
Crime And Punishment Essay, Research Paper In the novel Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, suffering is an important part of every character’s role. However, the message that Dostoevsky wants to present with the main character, Raskolnikov, is not one of the Christian ideas of deliverance through suffering.
Doll House Essay Research Paper Social Criticism
Doll House Essay, Research Paper Social Criticism in A Doll?s House In A Doll?s House, Ibsen as he often does, criticizes society and the ways of life in that time. Ibsen shows this in Torvold?s overwhelming power and control over Nora. This is also seen in the way that Women are weakened by society. Lastly it is shown in the way that Torvold tries to maintain a good reputation to the public.
Comparison Of Reacism Today From Racism Of
The Early 1900’S Essay, Research Paper Racism today is both the same and different from racism of the early 1900’s. Some areas of racism that are the same include that of the dark colored skinned population being segregated from whites and groups ganging up against people of a colored skin. Areas of racism that have changed dramatically include that amount of criticism the groups receive and the forms that they receive criticism.
An Other Eruption Essay Research Paper AN
An Other Eruption Essay, Research Paper AN OTHER ERUPTION? The January 13, 1999 a new volcano, a stratovolcano, erupted. This volcano is the Soufriere Hills on the island of Montserrat in the West Indies near Cuba and Barbados. Montserrat has three groups of mountains, the highest group is the Soufriere Hills his elevation is 915 meters in the southern part of the island.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville (1819 -
– 1891) Essay, Research Paper Moby Dick, or, The White Whale is a book of amazing depth. It can be read on several levels: for over a century it has captivated young readers, naturalists, historians and literary scholars
American Criticism In Short Stories Essay Research
Paper American Criticism Nineteen-Fifty-Five by Alice Walker and On the Road by Langston Hughes both use a wide variety of implicit and explicit criticisms of American society within their short stories. Both essays focus on White culture vs. Black individuality. This focus opens the door to implicit criticisms such as racism, hypocrisy and discrimination.
Consrtuctive Criticism Essay Research Paper I believe
Consrtuctive Criticism Essay, Research Paper I believe that constructive criticism promotes learning and improvement andis a form of advise that can help one and that one can benefit from. Offeringone constructive criticism can help one to overcome bad habits and problems.Constructive criticism is similar to criticism in that it is an opinion by anindividual, but the difference is that constructive criticism is used to be ofassistance in improving one’s nature, character, and personality and Criticismis words used by an individual that puts down or degrades another individualwithout serving a useful.
Frederick Douglass 4 Essay Research Paper Douglass
Frederick Douglass 4 Essay, Research Paper Douglass Portrayal of Women in Slavery in His Narrative Frederick Douglass portrays the black and white women in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass at two opposite extremes in his innovative way of using the literary device of contrast to make his views clear and distinct to his readers.
Huck Essay Research Paper Elements of Racism
Huck Essay, Research Paper Elements of Racism in Huckleberry Finn Despite all the criticism, of racism and other questionable material for young readers, Mark Twain?s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is a superbly written novel, which in the opinion of this reviewer should not be remove the literary cannon.