“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway has a modernist structure, being
built on the iceberg theory
. The plot reveals very little about the characters, and readers have to interpret their dialogue to understand the conflict and imagine the background of the situation.
What literary movement is Hills Like White Elephants?
The art, literature, and poetry of the early 20th century called for a disruption of social values. Modernism became the vague term to describe the shift. The characteristics of the term Modernism, all seek to free the restricted human spirit.
What is the style of Hills Like White Elephants?
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway is written in
a minimalistic style
. Except for a few very brief descriptive passages, the text is mostly in the form of dialogue, with very short sentences. It is as if the reader is overhearing a conversation between two people.
What was Hemingway's writing style?
From almost the beginning of his writing career, Hemingway's distinctive style occasioned a great deal of comment and controversy. Basically, his style is
simple, direct, and unadorned
, probably as a result of his early newspaper training.
What type of character is the American in Hills Like White Elephants?
Hemingway portrays the American as
a rugged man's man
—knowledgeable, worldly, and always in control of himself and the situation at hand. Even when vexed or confused, he maintains his cool and feigns indifference, such as when he tells the girl he doesn't care whether she has the operation.
What is the meaning behind Hills Like White Elephants?
A white elephant symbolizes
something no one wants
—in this story, the girl's unborn child. Comparing the hills—and, metaphorically, the baby—to elephants also recalls the expression “the elephant in the room,” a euphemism for something painfully obvious that no one wants to discuss. …
Why is Hemingway's title Hills Like White Elephants?
Therefore, Hemingway uses the title “Hills Like White Elephants” to point out the deepest meaning of the story; to
symbolize the sacred nature of propagating children
; to symbolize the pregnancy that is being debated by the American man and Jig.
How is Hills Like White Elephants like icebergs?
1. The iceberg-theory in “Hills Like White Elephants”: Hills Like White Elephants puts the reader directly into the story as
it begins with a description of a landscape and a railway station without telling
where exactly the described scenery takes place.
What is modernism in the visual arts?
Modernism was in part a response to the radically shifting conditions of life surrounding the rise of industrialisation. In the visual arts,
artists made work using fundamentally new subject matter, working techniques and materials
to better encapsulate this change as well as the hopes and dreams of the modern world.
Is Hemingway a modernist or postmodernist?
Ernest Hemingway was
both a modernist and a realist
and was a leading figure in both movements. His laconic style presents the reader with minimal description and dialogue, eschewing commentary, moral judgment, or psychological explanation.
What is unique about Hemingway's writing?
One iconic element of Ernest Hemingway's writing style was the simple words he used in his writing.
He wrote lived instead of existed
, looked versus gazed, clear rather than translucent and white in place of ivory. Hemingway didn't overcomplicate his craft.
What are the 5 types of writing?
Learn about the major writing styles:
narrative, descriptive, persuasive, expository, and creative
, and read examples of each.
Why is Hemingway's writing so good?
Among many great American writers, Hemingway is
famous for his objective and terse prose style
. As all the novels Hemingway published in his life, The Old Man and the Sea typically reflects his unique writing style. The language is simple and natural on the surface, but actually deliberate and artificial.
What time period is 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.
What is the irony in Hills Like White Elephants?
The irony of the title, then, is that
the man “buys” a white elephant believing that the action under consideration can return him and his girlfriend to their former relationship, but the girl, like the reader, knows they will never be the same
, for she turns from the vision of life, fields of grain and trees, and …
Which character is more reasonable in Hills Like White Elephants?
Explain your answer.
The man
is the more reasonable out of the two because he is telling the girl many reasons why they cannot and should not have the baby but he does not say it in a manner that is disrespectful to the girl.
