"Hills Like White Elephant" by Ernest Miller Hemingway.

Essay by lordmaulUniversity, Bachelor's August 2003

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Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" touches on an issue that human has been facing since Adam and Eve, which are communication problems in a relationship between a man and a woman. Here, he tells his story through conversations between the two main characters, a man, who was not given a name and a girl, simply known as Jig. Here, I will try my best to analyse the narrative point of view of this extract by exploiting the use of the dialogues.

Almost the entire story is told through the use of dialogues. Conflict is created through dialogues as these characters face what I believe to be the complication from the unplanned pregnancy. The dilemma is further complicated by the inability of both parties to convey their differing opinions to each other, thus creating pressure between them

From the first paragraph, there is some vagueness beneath these words said by the characters, that is, the unexpected pregnancy of the woman and its consequences upon the couple.

Without a doubt, the two characters discuss about an operation, which turns out to be an abortion. At first the man says that it is "just to let the air in", but then we learn that this operation is not necessary, that the girl can choose whether she wants to do it or not "Well, (...) if you don't want to you don't have to". Still, from my point of view, the man is very insincere when telling her that by saying "But I know that it's perfectly simple". Here, it is a bit like double meaning, assuring her that he will go along with what she wants while pressuring her to do what he want that. In fact, the man acknowledges that he prefer the girl to take the...