A Critical Analysis Essay for “Hills Like White Elephants”

Yuhao Wang
Instructor Haney
ENGL 102-52
A Critical Analysis Essay for “Hills l ike White Elephants”
As we all know, Ernest Hemingwaywas famous for his unique “Iceberg Principle,” which he hid thoughts and emotions described in extremely succinct word. Also, because of the time he lived—World War I, like many his novels, “Hills like White Elephants” was a short story for the Lost Generation. In this story, it is clear that it is trying deliver the message about the conflicts and confusions for the Lost Generation of their choices for lives.
The whole story was about a young couple and whether the girl should have an abortion or not. Mr. Hemingway directly got rid of the description of expatiatory and interminable scenes and built up the story by the dialogues between the man and the girl. Although the whole story does not have the word “abortion” and “pregnancy,”we can still know the girl was pregnant by the word “white elephants”and “operation.”“White elephants” is the symbol originally from Thailand. There were many elephants in ancient Thailand while the white of them were very rare. So ancient Thailand citizens valued them as treasure and thus, the white elephants did not labor but only were well-treated. The English use the “white elephants” to address things that are expensive but useless. Gradually it the word “white elephant” has becomewidely used. In this story, Mr. Hemingway compared white elephants to the
girl’s fetus. In the man’s view, the fetus was a n encumbrance while the girl loved it and wanted to keep it.
From the dialogue, we can know that the attitude of the girl and the man to the fetus were opposite, “They look like white elephants” (par. 9), “I’ve never seen one” (par.
10), “No you wouldn’t have” (par. 11) and “I might have. Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything” (par. 12). In that dialogue, the girl was firm and hopeful, but the man showed that he did not have the imagination about the “white elephants”, which was he had no capacity to imagine what their lives would be if they had a baby.Then, while they were drinking the Anis del Toro, the likely tastes for licorice began the dialogue for the conflict again. “It tastes like licorice” (par. 25), “That’s the way with everything” (par. 26), and “Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe” (par. 27). Through these sentences the girl said, in her mind, the baby she carried was sweet and a hopeful thing in her life.Although it might bring hardships into her life, at that moment, she still wanted and desired that the man would agree with her to have this baby. The girl compared the life to absinthe. She believed the life was sweet with bitter and she wished she could keep the baby and start a new life, so that the life was going to be nice and hopeful.However, the man was impatient and absent, he tried to appease the girl (“You started it,”“I was having a fine time” (par. 30))with perfunctorilyanswers—“Oh, cut it out” (par. 29), “That was bright”(par. 33) and “I guess so” (par. 35). Because, the man thought having the baby would be a burden for his life and he still did not want to settle down and end the wandering life around the
world.
After that, the man was trying hard to convince andpersuade the girl to have an abortion and get rid of the baby. “It’s really an awfully simple operation,”“It’s not really an operation at all” (par. 42), “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in” (par. 44), “I’ll go with and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural” (par. 46), and “I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it” (par.
53). During these conversations, it seemed that the girl’s attitude was going to be soft, at least not aggressive and sensitive as before. She looked at the ground the table legs rested on (par. 43) and she did not say anything (par. 45). Also, she began to be afraid if she insisted to have the baby, the man would see her as a burden and did not love her anymore. As the man said “That’s the only thing that bother us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (par. 52) and “Well, if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple” (par. 55). So, she became not determined as before, she said “So have I. And afterward they were all so happy” (par. 54). She madecompromise by admitting women having abortions could live happily. Then she asked the man “And you really want to?” (par.
56), she did not want to take the operation, but being afraid of losing the man’s love, she struggled and hesitated. She felt confused and conflicted. She asked serval times whether the man loved her, as she wanted to make sure the man loved her and everything between them would return to the time they loved each other if she had the operation. (par. 60-72)
Although she loved the man and really wanted to keep their relationship and did not be abandoned by the man, what deep inside of her mind was that she wanted to keep the baby, and started the new life to live in a new world. So, she tried to convince the man—“And we could have all this, and we would have everything and every day we make it more impossible” (par. 74). But the man did not understand what message she wanted to deliver to him. He thought as long as they were wandering together, not separated, they could have everything. “We can have the whole world” (par. 79) the man said so. The gir l suddenly went off and said “No we can’t” (par. 80) and “No we can’t. It isn’t ours anymore” (par. 81). She thought her last try was failed and the man was still insisted that she should do the operation to get rid of the baby. “Come on back in the shade. You mustn’t feel that way” (par. 86), “I don’t feel any way, I just know things”(par. 87), “Would you please pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseStop talking” (par. 99)and “I’ll scream”(par. 102). From these, we could know the girl was disappointed, helpless and even breakdown.
However, at the end of the story, Mr. Hemingway did not show us the answer of the story—whether the girl choose to get abortion or not. Only use “I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine” (par. 102) as the end ing sentence. He left us enough space to imagine the ending and also showed to us that, just like the ending, the Lost Generation was a generation with confusions and conflicts. Wecannot find a certain answer that whether the girl took the operation or the girl decided to keep the baby and the man might stay with her or he just left her and continued his wandering trip alone. The most of the story is built by dialogues. There are conflicts between the
couple and confuse of the girl everywhere through the dialogues. Conflicts and confusions could be the symbols of the Lost Generation.
Just in the end, “He looked up the tracks but could not see the train…They were all waiting reasonably for the train” (par. 108), the train represented their lives and like the man, the Lost Generation could not see their lives clearly indeed. They just waited and wandered for their lives. The end of the story could be anything as the wondering people were wandering around their choices in their lives.
Work Cited
Ernest Hemingway. “Hills like White Elephants.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. Portable 11th Ed. New York: Norton, 2014. 114-118. Print.。