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Universidade de So Paulo

Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Cincias Humanas

Departamento de Letras Modernas

Assignment #2 - Analysis of Hills like white elephants,

by Ernest Hemingway

Karen Ogino Sartrio n 5380369

FLM0543 - Introduo Prosa

Prof. Dra. Mayumi Ilari

2013

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Hills like white elephants is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, in which two characters

simply sit at a bar table and talk. Although short and with an apparently unimportant subject, this

is a very rich text. The purpose of this particular analysis is to focus on the point of view of the

narrator and discuss how it affects the structure of the short story.

These two characters, a couple, are talking to each other, and the tension can be felt

since the beginning. Theres an elephant in the room, so to speak, something both the girl and

the American are thinking, but do not dare to say out loud. It looks like a very mundane situation

one could say it is not even worth of being told. Nevertheless, Boris Schnaiderman disagrees:

Os grandes temas esto muitas vezes (...) nas coisas pequenas, nos episdios que parecem

sem importncia. (p.337). That is what Hemingway does in this story, he brings up this

mundane situation and shows the reader that there is more to it.

Another interesting point is that, despite the fact that traditional short stories are written by

building up the tension to the end, the final twist, in this short story it does not happen. The

tension is there the whole time and it does not go away in the end, because there is no end. Not

in the strict sense, anyway. It seems like the camera is turned off at some point, leaving the

reader without any answers: do they go through with the abortion? Is that really what they are

talking about? Does the American get bored with the girl, leaving her alone with a baby? Those

questions are not answered in the text, leaving it up to the reader to fill in the gaps.

In addition to that, the conciseness of the narration and dialogues lead the reader to, as

Schnaiderman would say, uma infinidade de caminhos (p.339). It allows the writer to suggest

maximum ideas with minimum words. The abortion, for example, could be inferred to be the

main subject of the couples conversation, although they never say this word. There are some

clues, though: at some point, the American says Its not even an operation at all. and Its not

really anything. Its just to let the air in. (p.212). It makes the subject quite clear, given that

medical technology was nothing like it is nowadays. Some other topics are less clear, like the

decision they made, or even if they did make up their minds about it. Moreover, it suggests

continuity, subverting the idea of time flow.

At this point, it is vital to discuss what exactly is the type of narration Hemingway uses. Inorder to do that, Norman Friedman poses four questions (p.118). The first one is Who talks to

the reader?, which can be easily answered: nobody. The narrator barely says anything, unless

he needs to say something about the surroundings. Which leads us to the second question:

From what position regarding the story does he tell it?. He tells it from the front, as if he were a

camera recording a scene from a movie. The third question is What channels of information

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does the narrator use to convey the story to the reader?. Clearly, there are only the characters

actions and words. Finally, At what distance does he place the reader from the story?, which

would be near.

Putting together all this information, it is possible to come to the conclusion that this short

story uses the Dramatic Mode (p.129) as point of view. As Friedman would define: The

information available to the reader in the Dramatic Mode is limited largely to what the characters

do and say their appearance and the setting may be supplied by the author as in stage

directions (p.129). To sum up, there is no author and no narrator to guide the reader properly

through the story. The narrator is there, of course, but only to tell the reader about some

important details of the surroundings: The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and

white. (p.211) or The girl looked across at the hills. (p.212). The narrator does not say anything

about his thoughts, feelings or insights he just gives us some awareness of what is going on, he

shows the reader what is happening, without interventions.

On the other hand, the reader has to infer the characters state of mind, as nothing is

told, but shown. Which is an important distinction for Friedman:

It is enough for the painter to attend to his palette, to get the proper shade in the

proper place, but the writer is torn continually between the difficulty of showing what a thing

is and the ease of telling how he feels about it. (p.115)

The style used by Hemingway in Hills like white elephants approaches itsefl of the style

of the drama, as there is practically only dialogue, no narration (or telling) and no omniscience

whatsoever.

Very little is said about the time also, despite the fact that it is really relevant to the story.

We are told in the first paragraph that the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes,

which is exactly the train the characters are waiting to catch. After that, the only thing said about

the time flow comes from the waitress, when she says The train is coming in five minutes.

(p.214). Therefore, the scene must have occurred in 35 to 40 minutes at the most, even though

the dialogue seems to flow much faster. This time frame can be perceived as such if we take a

closer look to the amount of drinks they order. Each of them drinks two big glasses of beer and

one Anis Del Toro, and that gives the reader a sense of the time flow, in a very subtle way.

All in all, the most important aspect concerning the time flow in this short story is that

there is no ending. The tension is not directed to the ending, the reader is almost completely

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unaware of how much time it has been since the characters sat down, there are only a few

words and they mean much more than what they really say: Friedman would say that the

authors purpose is to produce in the readers mind a moment of revelation (p.134). And that is

accomplished by not telling the reader what is it that the story is really about. An it probably is not

about the operation or abortion either, because maybe Hemingway would have given an ending

to it, stating his opinion about it or something like that. It is about something much deeper and

subtler: human relations and how there is no right or wrong answer for it. By not telling what

happens in the end, the author leaves this decision open for the reader to make.