Who Is Jig In Hills Like White Elephants

Although the information on Jig in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”(Mays 590-94) is limited, it is inevitable that she is crucial to the story. Encompassing the main idea of the story, the minimal knowledge of the character accents the rather bigger picture of absentee dialogue and stripped details leaving readers questioning the motives of Hemingway and the overall point to the story. Looking deeper into the story though, it becomes much more than just a conversation between two lovers and really a revelation of the two lives and the direction they are moving. Jig, never saying how she really feels, ultimately unconsciously holds all the power in the relationship and the conversation making her possess more importance in the story than the American. Narrowing in on a conversation between two lovers, Hemingway segues into a more elaborate topic with Jig’s remark that the hills in the distance look like white elephants. The white elephant …show more content…
She is much less assertive with her solution than the seemingly ‘in control’ American. Jig seems powerless at first glance before the story develops further, having to rely on the American for resources such as ordering from the car in the station. However, displaying a lack of inability to communicate with a waitress at a café didn’t relinquish her power and importance. It was the transformation from a childish girl to a woman through discovery and realization that Jig claims the utmost significance to the story. This discovery is evident through the dialogue when Jig explains that they can no longer have the world, “No, we can’t. It isn’t ours anymore,”(Mays 593). She comes to terms with the fact that no matter what happens, what decision they make, the relationship that she has come accustom to will no longer be what it