In the story “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway uses minimalistic dialogue, mood, and the motif of a ‘taboo’ procedure to portray a young woman confronting her future. The story uses these techniques to try and pass the intended message to the audience. Hemingway uses minimalistic dialogue between Jig and “the American” to portray a woman who is attempting to figure out her future. The story also uses mood to describe the seriousness of the issue that the two characters are discussing. Jig embraces a somber and serious mood as she tries to determine whether to abort or not. The motif of a ‘taboo’ procedure is used to portray Jig as a woman attempting to confront her future.
The author utilizes minimalistic dialogue between "the American" and Jig. Minimalistic dialogue is mainly used when the author wants the readers to read the actions of the characters and understand what they mean. The story lacks narration, description, identification of intent or character yet it seems easy to know what is happening. They do not plainly state the nature of their discussion yet in the end the readers can conclude that they are …show more content…
The woman is sad because she feels that the man does not love her. She thinks that the man only cares about the trips and the fun they had and not her safety or well-being. The man argues that the she needs to take the “operation” so that they can go back to their normal lives (Hemingway 27). He tries to be serious to convince the woman to undertake the operation. When the woman realizes that it is time to decide for herself, she speaks with seriousness. She tells the man to stop talking because it is not helping to convince her. She realizes that the only way to halt the guy from talking is by embracing seriousness in her