Free Essay with Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" Review

The book "Hills Like White Elephants" was written by author Ernest Hemingway. It was first published in the literary magazine, 1927 and later in "Men without Women," the same year. Because of its outstanding plot, style, and relatable themes, "Hills Like White Elephants" recorded massive sales in both the two instances of publications. The book is also known to be largely relating with the life of the author, Ernest Hemingway. He lived his childhood with both parents. His father who taught him how to hunt later took his life in deep desperation. Hemingway either does not escape a plethora of life challenges as he struggles to make his own life. Just before he could join prestigious college, he gets injured as an amateur driver to some company. In his hospital bed, Hemingway falls in love with one woman, a nurse who later turns down his marriage proposal due to his young age. He was only 19, nine years younger than the practicing nurse. In his later life, he meets other ladies settling with at least three, all of whom he divorced. Hemingway's life is now almost down and out. Two of the women he once married had his sons. His situation influences his writing career whenever he was deeply sunk in thoughts, wailing and sailing in solitude (ernest.hemingway.com). To deliver such a fantastic short story, Hemingway was aided by some literary styles

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The author perfectly develops his plot. Hills in the white elephants give a sense of time, place and date. The time setting of this short story is summer. The mention of things like the hot sun, drinking cold beer outside of the bar all denotes to hot weather. Regarding place, the story has a train transit station of Barcelona and Madrid that is Spain.

Hemingway is keen to mold and create his characters into what the story wants them to become. The two main characters are a young man and woman. The young man is of American decency, and the female is known as Jig. We are introduced to Jig as she waits for the train at the station. She has no drink on her table, and the American can not hesitate to buy her some (Bausch, 662). This depicts him as being very dogmatic. The American shows a lot of selfishness when he suggests to Jig abortion. She claims that the process would be so easy. She wants Jig to use more alcohol since he is already decided that she will abort. Jig, on the other hand, is portrayed here as being very gullible. She easily gets convinced to do abortion by the American even though she early resisted. And, she says, "Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about me" (Bausch, 663).

In his use of decorative language, Hemingway succeeds in his use of symbolism. The white elephant in the title was symbolically used to refer to the gifts that you do not want. As they settle down in the bar to have a drink, Jig mentions to the American White Hills. In this other case, the Hills were symbolically used to mean pregnancy. Jig meant that she never wanted to harm her unborn by taking alcohol (Bausch, 663)

In conclusion, the short story, 'Hills Like White Elephants' is to work with a little comparison. It is supplied with rich content of figurative language, well-developed characters, and characterization, an epitome scope and setting among other things making it inarguably among the best written short stories. Ernest Hemingway proves his worth from this work which presents a unique and challenging environment for book lovers and young readers to learn from.

Work cited

Bausch, Richard, and R.V. Cassill. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. Print.

"Ernest Hemingway." ernest.hemingway.com. Web. 18 Feb. 2012.