The characters in Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway differ from each other dramatically. The character known as the man is seen more as the protagonist and the girl he is having a conversation with is seen as the antagonist. The diction in this short story gives away the motivations of the man versus the girl. Figurative language and diction gives away the topic of the conversation that they want to keep quiet which is abortion. The man in the story is an American man and from other details in the story you can gather that he is well traveled and mature. His motivation is to persuade the girl to get an abortion so that he can move on with his life and be normal. He tells the girl, “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”
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She is young and unexperienced hence why she is known as the girl. Another hint that gives this away is when she tries beer for the first time and she doesn’t even know how to pronounce it or if she should have water with it. When she does try the beer she describes the taste as if it was candy, she says “it tastes like licorice” (182). An example of figurative language in the story that gives away the topic of conversation is when the girl compares the hills to white elephants. The hills symbolize a woman’s pregnant belly and how the white elephant is something that is costly and bothersome, which is exactly what a baby would be for these two characters. Her motivation in the story is that she wants to live happily ever after in love with this man, she is naïve and doesn’t see that he just wants her to get rid of the baby so that he can get out of the picture with no strings attached. Her character is round and dynamic because as the story carries on she begins to change her motivations. She has internal conflicts within herself by contemplating if she wants the abortion or not. The external conflict with the man is how he never stops talking about the abortion and how he says that he loves her and that everything will be normal again if she goes through with the operation although in reality life couldn’t go back to
She is young and unexperienced hence why she is known as the girl. Another hint that gives this away is when she tries beer for the first time and she doesn’t even know how to pronounce it or if she should have water with it. When she does try the beer she describes the taste as if it was candy, she says “it tastes like licorice” (182). An example of figurative language in the story that gives away the topic of conversation is when the girl compares the hills to white elephants. The hills symbolize a woman’s pregnant belly and how the white elephant is something that is costly and bothersome, which is exactly what a baby would be for these two characters. Her motivation in the story is that she wants to live happily ever after in love with this man, she is naïve and doesn’t see that he just wants her to get rid of the baby so that he can get out of the picture with no strings attached. Her character is round and dynamic because as the story carries on she begins to change her motivations. She has internal conflicts within herself by contemplating if she wants the abortion or not. The external conflict with the man is how he never stops talking about the abortion and how he says that he loves her and that everything will be normal again if she goes through with the operation although in reality life couldn’t go back to