What kind of alcohol is in hills like white elephants?
Catherine Sustana, Ph.D., is a fiction writer and a former professor of English at Hawaii Pacific University. Ernest Hemingway 's "Hills Like White Elephants" tells the story of a man and woman drinking beer and anise liqueur while they wait at a train station in Spain.
How does Hemingway characterize the girl in hills like white elephants?
The Girl Character Analysis in Hills Like White Elephants | SparkNotes Hills Like White Elephants Compared to the American, Hemingway’s overly masculine character, the girl is less assertive and persuasive. Throughout the story, the girl appears helpless, confused, and indecisive.
How does the man behave in the hills like white elephants?
He undermines and ultimately grows angry with the girl’s attempts to express her differing feelings about her pregnancy, and in the end seems to get his way. The Hills Like White Elephants quotes below are all either spoken by The Man or refer to The Man.
What did he drink at the bar and look at?
He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. Get the entire White Elephants LitChart as a printable PDF. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
How many drinks did each person have in Hills Like White Elephants?
They had "two glasses of beer and two felt pads," the train only "stopped at this junction for two minutes" (614), and they only had "two heavy bags" (617).
What is one drink ordered by the couple in Hills Like White Elephants?
[(essay date 1989) In the following essay, Lanier examines the symbolic uses of drinks flavored with aniseed, like absinthe, in “Hills Like White Elephants.” In Lanier's view, Hemingway expects his reader to have knowledge of the almost mythical tales of self-destruction associated with the drink to understand the ...
What role does alcohol play in Hills Like White Elephants?
Alcohol is not portrayed as a good thing. The symbolic part of the alcohol is that it is the only functioning part of their relationship. It gives the couple a short-term relief from their real life problems and realities.
Who is the man in Hills Like White Elephants?
The AmericanThe male protagonist of the story. The American never reveals his name, nor does the girl ever directly address him by name.
What is absinthe drink?
Absinthe (/ˈæbsɪnθ, -sæ̃θ/, French: [apsɛ̃t] ( listen)) is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from several plants, including the flowers and leaves of Artemisia absinthium ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs.
What does alcohol symbolize in literature?
Alcohol often acts as a social lubricant, creating emotional bonds among strangers or acquaintances, releasing the characters' inhibitions and allowing them to reveal their deep fears and tensions in the stories they tell in their drunken state.
How do we know the girl is pregnant in Hills Like White Elephants?
In the story the woman's pregnancy is implied through their conversation. She refers to the near by hills as elephants; "They look like white elephants" (464).
What does the white elephant symbolize?
The white elephant is a symbol of gentleness, majesty, protection, and purity. As well as being considered a symbol of success and a calm mind. The historic symbolism of the white elephant is related to fertility, and many cultures perform rituals around these gentle giants.
Why is it called Hills Like White Elephants?
Ernest Hemingway uses the title “Hills like White Elephants” to symbolize Jig's pregnancy. A “white elephant” is a defined as something that is of a great burden or a possession unwanted by the owner but difficult to dispose of, and is especially of something that is expensive to obtain (White Elephant 1).
How old is the man in Hills Like White Elephants?
twenty years oldSummary and Analysis Hills Like White Elephants. In the early 1920s, an American man and a girl, probably nineteen or twenty years old, are waiting at a Spanish railway station for the express train that will take them to Madrid.
Is jig a dynamic or static character?
Static Character: Jig; she can be considered a static character because she retains her same uncertain/slightly hostile air throughout the conversation.
What does the man offer to the girl in Hills Like White Elephants '?
The American, or the man, does most of the talking in the story, and if one of "Hills Like White Elephants"' characters can be considered a villain, it's him. He's assertive and overbearing in trying to convince the girl to get the abortion.
What is the ending of Hills Like White Elephants?
The ending of Hemingway's 1927 story, “Hills Like White Elephants” was interpreted for decades in one way: the female protagonist surrenders to her partner's wishes that she undergo abortion.
What is Anis del Toro?
Anis del Toro Spanish for "The bull's anise". It was discussed in Ernest Hemingway's works, "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The Sun Also Rises". was described as an ambrosia by Hemingway in, "Hills Like White Elephants". and used by the American man to get a girl intoxicated in the novel.
Where does the story Hills Like White Elephants take place?
Spain"Hills Like White Elephants" is set in Spain. An American man and a girl are sitting at an outdoor café in a Spanish train station, waiting for a fast, non-stop train coming from Barcelona that will take them to Madrid, where the girl will have an abortion.
The Man Quotes in Hills Like White Elephants
The Hills Like White Elephants quotes below are all either spoken by The Man or refer to The Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: ).
The Man Character Timeline in Hills Like White Elephants
The timeline below shows where the character The Man appears in Hills Like White Elephants. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
What language does the bartender speak?
The woman serving drinks to the American man and the girl. The bartender speaks only Spanish.
Who is the girl in the story Jig?
The female protagonist of the story. The American calls the girl “Jig” at one point in the story but never mentions her real name. Unlike the American, the girl is less sure of what she wants and appears reluctant to have the operation in question. She alternates between wanting to talk about the operation and wanting to avoid the topic altogether.
Does the American girl address him by name?
The male protagonist of the story. The American never reveals his name, nor does the girl ever directly address him by name. He is determined to convince the girl to have the operation but tries to appear as though he doesn’t care what she does. He remains disconnected from his surroundings, not really understanding or even listening to what the girl has to say.
Why is the Spanish hills like white elephants?
The girl’s comment about the Spanish hills looking like white elephants is mere filler, an example of ‘treading water’ as she and her male companion drink enough alcohol to make broaching the dread topic of their conversation – without actually directly mentioning it – palatable or even possible.
What does the white elephant mean in the story of the man and the girl?
Given the (implied) topic of the man and girl’s conversation – the girl’s reluctant decision to abort the baby she has conceived by the man – this meaning of ‘white elephant’ comes into view with a tragic force. The (unwanted) baby the girl has conceived with the man is like the proverbial white elephant, something that would cost a great deal for her to keep and maintain. But by the same token, she finds it hard to ‘get rid of’ her white elephant, presumably because of the finality of such an act, though it is also implied that she worries over the safety of the procedure. (We should remember that medical procedures in 1927 were often not as relatively clean or as advanced as they now are.)
What does the white elephant mean in Hemingway's story?
But the second meaning is implied in Hemingway’s story. A ‘white elephant’ is a Western cultural term describing a possession which its owner cannot dispose of. The maintenance cost of such a possession is out of proportion to its usefulness or desirability. Given the (implied) topic of the man and girl’s conversation – ...
What is the title of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants"?
So the very title of Hemingway’s short story, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, subtly and obliquely references the very thing which the two of them cannot bring themselves to mention or name openly : the title, then, both reveals and conceals the real subject of the story. ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ contains many of the most representative elements ...
Who was the detective who found the stolen white elephant?
One also wonders whether, somewhere in his prodigious mind, Hemingway was recalling Mark Twain ’s 1882 detective story, ‘ The Stolen White Elephant ’, in which the elephant turns out to have been in the original spot all along.
Do the hills look like white elephants?
Similarly, it is worth pointing out that the girl goes back on her initial statement that the hills resemble white elephants, saying shortly after this that the hills don’t actually look that much like white elephants after all, and only remind her of their colour. (This is interesting because many so-called white elephants are ‘white’ only in ...
What Else?
"Hills Like White Elephants" is a rich story that yields more every time you read it. Consider the contrast between the hot, dry side of the valley and the more fertile "fields of grain." You might consider the symbolism of the train tracks or the absinthe. You might ask yourself whether the woman will go through with the abortion, whether they'll stay together, and, finally, whether either of them knows the answers to these questions yet.
What is the iceberg theory?
Hemingway's Iceberg Theory. Also known as the "theory of omission," Hemingway's Iceberg Theory contends that the words on the page should be merely a small part of the whole story—they are the proverbial "tip of the iceberg," and a writer should use as few words as possible in order to indicate the larger, unwritten story ...
Why is not having an abortion considered a "to go through with"?
In the case of pregnancy, not having the abortion is something "to go through with" because it results in the birth of a child. Finally, the man asserts that "I don't want anybody but you. I don't want anyone else," which makes it clear that there will be "somebody else" unless the woman has the operation.
What is the story of the man and woman drinking beer and anise liqueur while they wait at a?
Ernest Hemingway 's "Hills Like White Elephants" tells the story of a man and woman drinking beer and anise liqueur while they wait at a train station in Spain. The man is attempting to convince the woman to get an abortion, but the woman is ambivalent about it. The story's tension comes from their terse, barbed dialogue .
What does the white elephant mean?
The two possible meanings of white elephants—female fertility and cast-off items —come together here because, as a man, he will never become pregnant himself and can cast off the responsibility of her pregnancy.
Where did the phrase "white elephant" come from?
The origin of the phrase is commonly traced to a practice in Siam (now Thailand) in which a king would bestow the gift of a white elephant on a member of his court who displeased him. The white elephant was considered sacred, so on the surface, this gift was an honor.
Can a girl order drinks from a bartender?
In fact, the girl can’t even order drinks from the bartender on her own without having to rely on the man’s ability to speak Spanish. Ironically, the girl seems to understand that her relationship with the American has effectively ended, despite her professed desire to make him happy.
Is Hemingway's girl more assertive than the American?
Compared to the American, Hemingway’s overly masculine character, the girl is less assertive and persuasive.
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