Hills Like White Elephants, Research Paper Example

The story “Hills like white elephants” By Earnest Hemmingway is essentially a conversation between a man and a woman at a station, while waiting for a train.  This conservation presents various underlying aspects that present associations with the time period in which Hemmingway wrote the story.  These associations identify the inspirations that led to the writing of the dialogue.

The symbolism of the story is essentially in regards to the ‘white elephant in the room’ or an issue that nobody really wants to bring up.  In this way, the title of the story relates to the fact that the woman is pregnant, and their conversation is underscored by the need to discuss the issue and their discretion in doing so.  This presentation seems to indicate some motive or reasoning that Hemmingway had for writing the piece.  This motive might have been inspired by his personal life or the time and place that he was living in.

The landscape that they are looking at, divided in contrast by desolation in one direction and greenery in the other, presents the identifications that each character is making with their situation.    These identifications present radically different viewpoints about what should be done going forward.  While the woman does not seem to want to abort the baby, she seems to be confined to the whim of the man she is talking to.

In this way, one of the most important elements that Hemmingway seems to be making a comment about is abortion.  Although during the time that the story was written abortions were illegal, the couple in the story are having an argument about whether or not the girl should have one.  This demonstrates the social implications that those having a baby would be, as they are willing to consider breaking the law.

Essentially, the man seems unwilling to change his life for the girl, and simply wants to go on doing what he has been.  This represents the idealization of leisurely time that he must have had.  Hemmingway, here, seems to be making an allusion to the notions of responsibility that people had at the time.  Perhaps he was attempting to point out the differences in how men and women think about having children, and of aborting them.

Hemmingway’s life the time of writing the story was punctuated by his rocky relationship with his wife. They seem to have not got along well, and she wrote at one point that she had an abortion, after they had been trying to have a baby for a long time, to spite him.  This presents the background that he might have created the story in.  By presenting these opposing views of child rearing and responsibility perhaps he was trying to remark about his struggling relationship with his wife.

The story is based on the notions of morality that people within these situations are presented with.  Furthermore, the strained relationship between the two people, the way in which their conversation seems to have some deep seeded anger behind it, might have been inspired by this difficult relationship that he was having at the time. This relationship would have been an important influence on the symbols and ideas that were present in his mind when he created the short story.

Works Cited

Hemmingway, Earnest. Hills Like White Elephants. Charters, Ann, Ed. The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. 6^th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003

O’Brien, Timothy D. Allusion, Word-play, and the central conflict in Hemmingway’s “Hills Like Elephants”. The Hemmingway review. 1996.