hills like white elephants

Hemmingway's "Hills Like White Elephants"

Ernest Hemmingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" is not a story in the clasical

sense with an introduction, a development of the story, and an end. We only get some

time in the life of two people, as if it were just a piece of a film where we have a lot do

deduce. This story does not give everything done for the reader, we only see the

surface of what is going on. It leaves an open end, readers can have their own ending

and therefore take part in the story. A masterpiece of external narration, there seems

to be no focal point in the characters. One must only here what is said, not what is

thought by the two main characters, the American and Jig. Hemmingway's third person

narrator takes an objective position outside of the characters, thus providing a look from

an third person point of view.

Ernest Hemingway in Milan, 1918

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English: Abortion laws in the United States prior ...

The story told is that of a woman and a man during their trip to a place where

she can have an abortion. Everything in the tale is related to the idea of fertility and

barrenness. This main topic can been seen from the title, where "Hills" refer to the

shape of the pregnant belly, and "White Elephants" is an idiom that refers to useless or

unwanted things. In this case the unwanted thing is the unborn baby the couple is

awaiting to abort.

One can see that the story setting is in Spain, but one does not know the final

destination of the train which they are awainting. It is not known exactly where they are

or the time or date in which the story takes place. We do not even know if they really

take the train.

The train...