Hills Like White Elephants
This essay is in response to Ernest Hemingway’s short story, discussed along the literary theories presented in Gregory Currie’s essay, Work and Text. It’s rather long and the level of discourse may not be your cup of tea, but I encourage you to read on and charge up your neurons a bit.
“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them… A good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action.” With that philosophy, Ernest Hemingway communicates the story of Hills Like White Elephants not only through text, but through subtext. Hemingway all but leaves out description—the mode in which most writers convey their story—and instead uses dialog and reactions to flesh out his characters and his narrative.Hills Like White Elephants begins by creating the setting. The mention of the lack of shade and trees suggests the heat of the atmosphere, not just in the weather but in the air between the two main leads, the American and the girl, who is later revealed to be named Jig. The two lines of rails, heading in opposite directions, allude to the choice the characters have to make, a choice that leaves no middle ground and, like the arriving train, must come soon.
The story breaks off from the setting and straight into the dialog between the American and the girl. Their first lines may seem innocuous, but already they reveal the relationship between the two figures. Though it seems as if the girl made the choice for them to have beer, she is actually the one subservient to the American. He does not even need to be explicit in his desires. Just by mentioning the heat, he leads her to choosing the drinks he wants, while creating the illusion she has her own will.This restriction of will is what drives the story. When the girl first mentions her view of the sun bleached hills looking like white elephants, the American quickly becomes hostile.
Unable to win him over, the girl simply changes the subject. Her creative observation of the hills and her admiration of the scenery, hinting of her imagination and her desire to express her will, are quickly put down by her partner, who refuses to take a new view on his reality.And so she turns to the topic of alcohol, the only subject that the American seems to be agreeable with. However, the man abruptly mentions an operation.
The lack of transitions makes their dialog very real, as people often talk in wild tangents when pressing thoughts demand to be said. Also, their dialog is laced with several underpinnings, as language itself is a metaphor, alluding to things beyond the morphemes and phonemes they string along, and while never once mentioning the word abortion, it is what the characters seem to be talking about.The operation is treated as the cure for their issue, an issue that the American sees as a hindrance to the carefree lifestyle he leads.
He looks at their bags, labeled with all the hotels they spent a night in, symbolizing his bohemian ways. The girl, however, seeks for something more meaningful and looks to the scenery of the river and the hills, linking the sights with her vision of having a baby, a vision that may provide the meaning she yearns for. The two figures rarely face each other when talking, often looking at various things to avoid meeting eye-to-eye.
The man presses her with the operation as she tries to steer clear from it. She yields, stating she does not care about herself, putting her life in the American’s hands. It seems to turn the tables a bit, as the American tells her she does not have to go through with it if she did not want to. However, he keeps on about the simplicity of the operation and how their life could go back to the way it was. Like the order of the beer in the beginning of the story, he seems to let her have the choice when he is truly making the decisions. Crushing her hopes, she makes a plea for him to stop talking, which he cannot or will not do.
Her jig is up, and she must dance to the beat of the American. But she cannot seem to let go of the free-style steps she had for a few moments. The baby opened the world for her, and she felt like they “could have everything and every day [they] make it more impossible.” The American assures her they could, but she disagrees. The choice of words is key to this part of their dialog, especially on the subtle differences with the word could and can. Can implies having the ability of the power, while could only hints at possibilities, with overcast with doubt.
In the end, and the girl says there in nothing wrong with her anymore, but nothing clear is decided, and like the train station they are waiting in, their lives remain at a juncture, still trapped until they make a definite choice in the direction of their lives.
Hemingway leaves the ambiguity, which fits the bare-necessities style of his writing. Stated in An Interview, Hemingway, “always [tries] to write on the principle of the iceberg.” He gives only the surface of the story, but hints of the great mass that lies below. This principle raises various questions regarding his work, such as Hills Like White Elephants. If the main story does not lie solely within the text, but in the subtext, what is considered the work that makes up Hills Like White Elephants?
Gregory Currie suggests if the work is not the text, perhaps the work is the act of Hemingway’s textual composition. Thus the work can have, according to Currie, different texts in different worlds, but their differences are superficial, as having very different texts would violate the “counterpartness condition” that the work must remain the same in different circumstances.
This theory can account for the various translations of Hemingway’s work. A language is unable to perfectly shift into another language, and so texts will remain different, but the work can still remain the same as long as the composition intended by the author remains. However, Currie also points the pitfalls of such an approach. If a work is an act, properties of one are transitively properties of the other. While Hemingway’s writing style may be economical, the act of the story need not necessarily be economical. As in Hills Like White Elephants, the work may be short and bare, but the act of the story can be pictured with much finer detail.
Another suggestion Currie gives is that one can simply state that there are works and they are simply distinct from texts. The properties of a work, then, must have: “things that stand in certain relations to texts, are capable of being (multiply) interpreted, stand in certain other relations to acts of textual composition and to the cultural contexts in which those acts are embedded, etc.” On the other hand, Curries admits that nothing has such properties, which goes on to say that literary works are non-existent. To be able to read, write, and interpret are the ends in themselves, and talk of literary works are but part of “an elaborate game of make-believe.”
Currie continues to say that works are not treated in less regard because they do not exist as “it is enough that we make-believe they do.” Hemingway himself in An Interview said, “you make something though your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.” To Currie, one may not be able to identify what a work is or whether is exists or not. In such cases, the only important factor is that one know what works are not (such as text) because such a “mislocation” distorts the feature of a work.
The interpretation of texts and works are distinct, but Currie points out that simply because the text is not a work it does not mean it is not important. Indeed, in Hemingway’s work, the text provides the scope to see under what is visible, to peer into vast mass hidden under the text, and to create an interpretation that clears up the ambiguity one meets in a work.
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