短篇小说论文
conversation without more description. What s more, she is also a bystander, “She put the felt pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and the girl.”. Therefore, readers can read the story or the lovers conversation from her angle.
White elephants
“The white elephant” is the biggest and the most important metaphor in the story. It appears over and over again. In their conversation, Jig looked at the hills unconsciously and said “They look like white elephants” for five times, so we can know why Hemingway named this story “Hills like white elephants”. The symbolism of the white elephants further emphasizes the subject of the story. And it mainly has three meanings - baby, responsibility, and the man.
“The white elephant” is an old idiom of Indian English. In India, the white elephant is sacred to people which can only be raised and consecrated. It is of no use to normal people. Therefore, “the white elephant” means things that are of no use. There is no doubt that “the white elephant” means something else rather than the hills. But Hemingway didn t explain to us what it is, he just guide and encourage us readers to think it by ourselves.
A white elephant is a precious item that has a cost which perhaps surpasses its usefulness. For example, a person may give a "white elephant" gift to someone as a joke. The gift is totally useless to the recipient. This is the reality of what Jig is going through. She has received a gift which is useless to her at this time in her life. It is a gift that could be priceless to another. Hemingway uses this play on words to develop the idea of Jig's possibility of having an unexpected child.
When the girl comments that the hills look like white elephants for the first time ,while the man said that he had never seen a white elephant before. This is because he is not open to considering the possibility of keeping the child and wants the girl to have the abortion operation. Jig answers, "No, you wouldn't have." If the hills represent female fertility , she could be suggesting that he is not the type of person ever to intentionally have a child.
“All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn t that bright?” “That was bright.”
“I wanted to try this new drink: That s all we do, isn t it — look at things and try new drinks?”
“I guess so.”
The gir looked across at the hills.
“They re lovely hills,” she said. “They don t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.”
In this short dialogue, Jig mention the symbol of white elephants for the second and third times, but she denies the symbol when she mention it in the third time. Her feelings have changed , because her emotion has changed. Maybe this symbol is not so important, but it is a way that Jig try to use to cheer herself up and call attention of the man from beginning to end. But apparently the man can not pay his attention to the hills. What he cares about is only one thing. Through “He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on