In Hills like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway uses each word to the fullest. As there is no solid indication to what the characters are thinking about, Ernest seems to select his symbolism in a way that gives his readers a glimpse into what is going on in the characters' minds'. The white hills are the first setting the readers might notice since it is referred to in the title of the story. A white elephant is an idiom that describes anything with value that neither can be disposed of nor financially taken care of."They're lovely hills....They don't really look like white elephants." Jig says when she started to have second thoughts about going through with the abortion as the hills are showing her what her future baby bum might look like." between two line of rails.." is where the next symbolism appears as the couple find themselves in a junction lost between two decisions, one leads to abortion and the other to keeping the baby. Finally, the setting in this story is crucial since us readers can only interpret the story through the eyes of Jig and the American. Although Jig seems to care deeply about the man, the outcome of her decision is left unstated
This post shows you have an excellent grasp on the story, Johara!
ReplyDeleteA minor punctuation point: when a sentence begins with a quotation that is itself not the beginning of a sentence, change the word order of the sentence, inserting an introductory phrase, if necessary.
Thus, this: " 'between two line of rails..' is where the next symbolism appears as the couple find themselves in a junction lost between two decisions, one leads to abortion and the other to keeping the baby"
...becomes this:
"Similarly, 'the two lines of rails' is a literal junction that points to a choice of decisions, one leading to abortion, and the other to keeping the unborn child."