Hills Like White Elephants Symbolism Essay

In the short story, “Hills like White Elephants”, Ernest Hemingway parallels and amplifies the conflict between Jig and her American. The symbolism of the white elephants further emphasizes the subject of the story. Hemingway did a great job in comparing the white elephants to an unborn baby. The symbolisms in the story are white elephants, the train station, and alcoholic beverages. The white elephants symbolize a consequence no one wants which refers to Jig’s unborn child. In the beginning of the story Jig daze off looking at the hills which were “white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.” Then she states, “‘They look like white elephants,’ ‘I’ve never seen one,’ the man drank his beer. ‘No, you wouldn’t have.’” at first is by all accounts an easygoing, spur of the moment comment, however it really serves as segue for her and the American to discuss their child and the possibility of having a fetus removal (abortion). But contradicts her in lines 36-37 “They don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.” since she needs to keep her child now that she contemplates it. Looking at the hills—and, figuratively, the infant—to elephants likewise reviews the expression "the glaring …show more content…
Correspondingly noteworthy in importance, the railroad tracts mirror the partition of state of mind and thought in the middle of Jig and the man, showing that there is no trade off - Jig should either choose to have the operation or she will lose her lover; in any case, on the other hand, their lives won't meet up. The decisions Jig countenances between having the infant or having the fetus removal (abortion); she appears to be torn between the two scenes, not just remarking on the excellence of the hills additionally physically strolling to the end of the stage and looking out at the brown land around the train