HILLS LIKE

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

WHITE
ELEPHANTS
An analysis to the class
 TODAY'S TOPICS
WHAT WE'LL DISCUSS

Author's Profile
Settings
Characters
Plot
Conflict
Theme
Symbols
 ERNEST MILLER HEMINGWAY
- was an American writer who had an immense influence on 20th
century literature.

- His first published novel The Sun Also Rises .

- His last major work in fiction, The Old Man and the Sea, won
the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is widely regarded as a 20th
century classic.

- Also wrote a number of non-fiction works including Death in the

Afternoon and A Moveable Feast.

- His short stories like The Killers and Hills Like White Elephants,
continue to be hugely popular.

AUTHOR'S PROFILE - Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

- He died in 1961
 - It was first published in August

HILLS LIKE WHITE

1927, in the literary magazine
transition, then later

ELEPHANT
in the 1927 short story collection
Men Without Women.

- It is not the normal story

where you have a beginning, middle
and end.

- Hemingway gave just enough

information so that readers could
draw their own conclusions.

- The entire story

encompasses a conversation between
two lovers and leaves the reader with
more questions than answers.
SETTINGS

In the valley of the Ebro between Barcelona and Madrid.

 The American
- Boy
- Speaks English and Spanish
- behaves according to
Hemingway’s rigid conception of
masculinity.
- Hemingway portrays the
American as a rugged man’s man—
CHARACTERS
The Girl
- Pregnant, Young looking
- is less assertive and persuasive.
Throughout the story, the girl
appears helpless, confused, and
indecisive.

knowledgeable, worldly, and

always in control of himself and the
situation at hand.
 PLOT

Introduction Rising Action Climax Falling Action Resolution

The
They The girl says nothing
They The man knows Jig doesn't "feel
for a while, but then she
ordered beer and american asks the better," but asks her anyway.
were in a station, asks what will happen She
tried this new girl if she's fine and
near the hills in after she's had the responds by pretending not
drink. Then the girl operation. The man she said "i feel fine" to know what he’s talking
Ebro, Their train started talking answers that things will "there is nothing about. In light of her
would arrive in 40 about the be fine afterward, just previous request that they
wrong with me. I
minutes so they not discuss it, her response
hill, saying how it like they were before,
feel fine". isn't out of character—but it
decided to grab a looked like a white and
also doesn't seem to be
that it will fix their
drink. elephant and that getting them any closer to a
problems. solution.
it was lovely.
 The couple are actually
CONFLICT (MAN TO MAN)
having a debate on
whether or not the girl (MAN TO HIMSELF)
should have an
abortion. The man
clearly wants her to
have the abortion
because he
does not want anything
to interrupt their
carefree, traveling life
style.
 "BREAKDOWN IN
COMMUNICATION"

THEME
WHITE ELEPHANT

-something no one
wants
- in the story's
context, it is the
unborn child.

SYMBOLS
 Where should we go?
HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

I don't care. Anywhere you want.

Anywhere we don't know people.
Ernest Hemingway