Submitted by: Submitted by mdcarta1
Views: 805
Words: 663
Pages: 3
Category: Literature
Date Submitted: 11/13/2011 09:46 AM
Assignment: Hills like white elephants
What counts is what’s underneath
The short story, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, is about a couple discussing the issue of an abortion while waiting for a train in Spain. Many people do not realize that Hemingway’s story is about abortion since the word itself is not used. The author’s style of writing using the Iceberg Theory makes the reader undergo an unstated dramatic tension between each line. Stripping everything but the essentials from the story, Hemingway’s visible tip of an iceberg hides a far greater mass of ice underneath the ocean surface. The author’s powerful use of setting and symbolism guide the reader to understand that the story is about an abortion.
Hemingway sets his short story at a train station in the middle of a valley in Spain. The couple is waiting for the train between two rails. These two rails symbolize that the couple is at a crossroad, further seen as in between two decisions. The station is not the final destination, therefore travelers, including the couple, must decide where to go. In this case, you could further see this situation conveying the idea of decision making between the couple; to keep the baby or not. Moreover, the contrast between the white hills and the valley possibly portrays the contradiction between life and death, fertility and sterility and expresses the choice the girl faces between having the baby or the abortion. The fields of grain represent fertility which symbolizes her present pregnant state and the river represents life. When the girl is appreciating the panorama, a “shadow of cloud”, which represents the abortion, overcomes her happiness. Also, the loneliness around the station could imply that there is no way back and the problem must be addressed now.
As the girl observes the white hills surrounding her she describes them as white elephants. However, as odd as it sounds, white elephants are considered rare, special, a blessing but...