sometimes in life we hit hills and the only way to get past them is to go up them and then back down. Much like The American and The Girl who hit trouble and struggle to get through it. In "Hills like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway, The 'American' and "the Girl" relationship reveals its complexity through ignorance, selfishness, and not sharing the same vision for the future that eventually leads them to dynamically change. In hills Like White Elephants, hemingway illustrates a scene of conflict within the couple, the American and The Girl. The American attempts to persuade the Girl, and reveals his intentions of wanting the Girl to have an abortion showing that his intentions are ignorant and reflect his immature mentality on
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The American is spontaneous and free will and gets down to business. This is shown when he brings The Girl a beer and immediately initiates the looming conversation which the author foreshadows with imagery of the hills. The hills represent the loomin troubles to come for the couple that will be confronted by the conversation. The Americans approach contrasts The Girl who seems to stall the conversation and jumps to conclusion when she refuses to care about herself in order to expose his selfishness “ ‘Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘well, I care about you.’ ‘oh, yes. But I don’t care about me. And I’ll do it and everything will be fine.’”(52-54). The women's loss of having an abortion is not seen by the American but continues to say that they can have the “the whole world”. While his failure to understand that with the pregnancy the “whole world” has changed for The Girl and the American refuses to accept reality because he wants things to stay the same as they were before, not as serious and more fun, with not much commitment. Hemingway illustrates to the readers that there life perspective has been altered which will now lead them in separate ways. The readers can infer this from the meaning of the symbol of “white elephants”. In the beginning of the first stanza, the girl, is clearing up what she meant to describe the hills as “white elephants”. Even though readers can infer there once was a clear meaning to the phrase because in line 45 The Girl says “ I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you'll like it?” A different meaning of this symbol portrays a different vision they both have. Which is furthermore explained by The Girls challenging tone, the American seems to ignore
The American is spontaneous and free will and gets down to business. This is shown when he brings The Girl a beer and immediately initiates the looming conversation which the author foreshadows with imagery of the hills. The hills represent the loomin troubles to come for the couple that will be confronted by the conversation. The Americans approach contrasts The Girl who seems to stall the conversation and jumps to conclusion when she refuses to care about herself in order to expose his selfishness “ ‘Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘well, I care about you.’ ‘oh, yes. But I don’t care about me. And I’ll do it and everything will be fine.’”(52-54). The women's loss of having an abortion is not seen by the American but continues to say that they can have the “the whole world”. While his failure to understand that with the pregnancy the “whole world” has changed for The Girl and the American refuses to accept reality because he wants things to stay the same as they were before, not as serious and more fun, with not much commitment. Hemingway illustrates to the readers that there life perspective has been altered which will now lead them in separate ways. The readers can infer this from the meaning of the symbol of “white elephants”. In the beginning of the first stanza, the girl, is clearing up what she meant to describe the hills as “white elephants”. Even though readers can infer there once was a clear meaning to the phrase because in line 45 The Girl says “ I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you'll like it?” A different meaning of this symbol portrays a different vision they both have. Which is furthermore explained by The Girls challenging tone, the American seems to ignore