Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway: Literary Analysis

Words: 558
Pages: 3

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Professor Guy Bruno
Intro to Literature
19 March 2017 Puzzles Pieces

Hills Like White Elephants is a puzzling short story. Ernest Hemingway uses both figurative and literal pieces to tell this story. The reader must then take those pieces and put them together. This paper will summarize how the characters in this story are on an emotional journey in search of freedom. Here is a summary of the short story. The short story, Hills Like White Elephants, is about a couple. The couple has traveled to Spain from America. The couple is in Spain because of a baby. The girl does not want to give birth to a baby, so they came to the hills of Spain for an abortion. Therefore, the girl seemed troubled. She wanted to go through with it, but she wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. She may have been afraid of childbirth or raising a family. In the end, she only wanted it to be the two of them. Her abortion was in Spain, because abortion was currently illegal in the United States. This story must have taken place before nineteen seventy-one. Nineteen seventy-one was the
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The couple is in search of freedom on their journey in Spain. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, Jig says, “And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible” (Hemingway 117). To be literal, this statement only means one thing. Jig doesn’t want to have a family. She just wants it to be her and her companion. If she doesn’t have the abortion soon, it will be too late. She will lose her freedom. Figuratively, this statement means that without a baby; she feels like she can have the world. The pattern of their lives is that this couple has traveled, without a care in the world. They have spent many nights in various hotels around the world. These nights were recorded on their suitcases. They both needed to get their freedom back, by doing this act. Freedom is the third piece to the