Hills Like White Elephants Symbolism

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Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway is a short story about an american man and a woman, named Jig, discussing her abortion without coming right out and saying the details of it. Ernest Hemingway uses the theory of omission to write this short story, the theory of omission is the idea of leaving out some details that the reader can figure out on their own in order to refine ideas to their own essence. Hills Like White Elephants contains a lot of symbolism throughout the whole story. Hemingway uses the term white elephant to represent a deeper meaning, the landscape to express their surroundings, and even the consumption of alcohol that the characters consume.
The white elephant has more than just one meaning, the saying “avoiding …show more content…
Jig then continues to say that she does not care about herself, that she only cares for the american man’s happiness, and if the american man wants her to get the abortion, than she will. The green side of things can represent life, and their love for eachother thriving, and the not so green side can represent abortion, and the death of their unborn child. It is important the landscape is used as a symbol in Hills Like White Elephants because it shows that Jig longs to be on the other side where life is simple, and everything is so beautiful, rather than being in the sun with no trees to cover her with shade. When Jig realizes that before she can travel to her next destination, she has to solve the problem she has with the american man, so she goes back to carelessly consuming alcohol. Johnson 3
Alcohol is another symbol used in Hills Like White Elephants. The fact that the american man and Jig drank in the first place shows how neither of them care about the baby. It is known that alcohol affects the fetus in a negative way and since they both carelessly try new drinks shows that they do not care about the health of their child. “‘I wanted to try this new
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