Hills Like White Elephants

ernest hemingway

BIO

• Born in Oak Park, Illinois
• Started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen
• Entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army
• First work,"The Sun Also Rises"(1926)
• Died in Idaho in 1961.

SETTING

• Train station in the middle of a desolate valley.

PLOT

characters

• The American
• The Girl
• The Bartender

CONFLICT (internal)

• The first and most evident is that she is struggling with this issue of the abortion. Jig is an individual who must fight through her own internal doubts about "the procedure" as well as the American's beliefs about it.

CONFLICT (EXTERNAL)

• Jig is also enduing conflict about whether or not the American truly loves her. This also forms a conflict because it causes her to feel further agony about whether or not she has been foolish in believing his love for her.

RISING ACTION

• In the rising action the couple were talking about ordering beer while waiting for their train. The conversation turns to the hills on the side of the station, and the girl explains the hills look like “White Elephants”. This brings the conversation to the characters debating whether the “procedure” will push through or not.

CLIMAX

FALLING ACTION

• Is when the American asks the girl if she’s fine and she said “I feel fine” “There is nothing wrong with me. I feel fine”.

RESOLUTION

• The action is winding down when the man has a drink at the bar, and when he’s walking back to Jig, and then when he walks through the curtain. At the same time, all closure is suspended; we don’t know quite how things will end.

Short Clip

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