Part 1:
Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", is a story written as a conversation between a couple. In reading the short story, you can see what the story and setting is about based on the conversation between the man and a woman in Spain, waiting for a train. The couple is sitting in a train station in Spain waiting to go to Madrid on a hot warm day where they sit and talk over a drink of beer. When the couple sits and waits, they see the hills of the valley of Ebro. The hills as it is describes is "long and white", which is signifant to the story's title. The story begins with the description of where the couple is and throughout the conversation between the couple, the audience can see the how the setting relates to the title of the story. The woman sees how the valley is long and white just like, White Elepants, which is the title of the story. The way the land and the hills are described are symbolic to what is actually being talked about in the story. The woman is actually pregnant and the way the hills are describe to reflect to what the woman sees the baby as. White can mean purity as a baby is seen. It can symbolize innocence and a breathe of fresh air as babies come into the world taking their first breathe of fresh air. Elephants in many cultures are seen as good luck. In the story, it can be said that the woman wants to keep the child thinking that it will change her world and will be good for the couple. She sees the hills and the baby as a sign of good luck and fortune into her life and so in sitting and waiting for the train, she is seeing what the baby represents to her. The whole story is a converstation between the man and the woman, and the story is told in third person form. It is told in third person in a way of a conversation where we actually see the two ideas of each character blend together to see the whole story right before our eyes. Ernest Hemingway's style in writing this story is symbolic, vivid, picturesque and to the point. He tells the story by letting his characters tell his story and also creates setting and descriptions to symbolize hidden meanings and what the story really means.
Part 2:
Ernest Hemingway was born in July 21, 1899, Illinois to a physician and musician. He was raised in a well educated conservative family in the suburbs as the first born son. Growing up he loved sports and played boxing, track and field, water polo but he was smart as well and excelled in English in school. He loved to write he began writing for his high school newspaper. He continued to write after high school and took interest as a career he worked for The Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. At a young age, Hemingway participated in World War II, D-Day, the Spanish Civil War, and the liberation of Paris. Hemingway was married 4 times and had three sons. Hemingway has lived in Key West, Florida, the Caribbean and in Cuba througout his life, traveling from war to war and marrying over and over. Throughout his time in the war and with his experiences of marriages and children, Hemingway would write his novels that are related to his life. Hemingway finally resided in Idaho, where he committed suicide, just like his father had. Heminway was a heavy drinker and with being addicted to alcohol, he was narcisstic and bipolar as well. He died on July 2, 1961 in Ketchum, Idaho.
It has been known that writers write what they know. Throughout Hemingway's life, he did write what he knew, which made him an exceptional writer that we still admire his work till today. Hemingway has experienced war, trauma, education and falling in love. In his novels, he based his stories on what he knows. For example, Hemingway, wrote A Farewell to Arms which is a story that takes place during a war but is a story of a man who loved a woman as well. Heminway experienced both these details in his own life, that he knew how to write, describe and make the audience see and feel what he experienced. In seein the style, in the way he writes, I can see how he was a journalist before he was a writer. In writing in High School and as Cub Reporter, he created a style of writing, as in writing short phrases. In reading some of his stories and the "Hills Like White Elephants" is an example of his style. Hemingway likes writing short sentences that are direct and to the point. Even though he is a writer, one can tell he was a journalist in his choppy way of writing but he has evolved into a Nobel Prize Writer, by his stories, symbolism, and making the audience experience what he experienced throughout this life. We not only get to read a story about Ernest Hemingway, but we get to read Ernest Hemingway as a person through every page and every word in his stories.
Works Cited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html
