`Hills look like white elephants` By Hemingway

Symbolic Perspectives of the Elephant in the Room

Ernest Hemingway wrote the short story Hills Like White Elephants ' in the early nineteen twenties . The story itself is short with little to no action between the characters , introduced to the reader as the American and a woman named Jig , other than a bit of curious dialogue Hemingway , for his part , seems to have intended this story to have a deeper , allegoric and symbolic meaning for the reader . With that said a look will now be taken to dissect the sparse dialogue and determine

the true allegory within the story by defining the literary and symbolic illusions

To begin with , this story can be read as viewing a moment in time , where a man and a woman are waiting at a train station to travel to Madrid and , as the American and Jig sit down in the shade to wait , they have two beers . Then , the Jig looks serenely off into the distance at the mountains , noting that they look like white elephants (Hemingway 1 . The American responds that the words painted on the mountain read Anis del Toro ' which happens to be another drink , and curious , they two . This particular drink must have some meaning to Hemingway as the characters in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises favor this liqueur as well

Hemingway 's use of Anis del Toro , in this instance , better defines the allegory in that this is his plot opportunity to show the age difference between...