In short...

In English class, we've been going through a lot of short story analysis. First off, we did a project involving an infographic, which was in my last-to-last post. Right now, I'm prepping a TEDtalk for my  I've probably read a ton of short stories in the attempt to find the one I would like to use on my project. Finally, though, I've found one that I guess I can do a 5-minute presentation on. I chose "Hills like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. It's a really nice story, and I regret that I'm about to spoil it for whoever is reading this post.

Ugh. Me and the GIFs. It shouldn't even be legal. Anyways. I shall continue. I really like this short story. It was published in 1927, but the storyline still fits in the modern day world. At a first glance, it seems as though it is a simple conversation between a man and a woman waiting for a train to Madrid. But short stories are never as simple as that. Turns out, they're talking about an abortion.

Yeah, I know, right? How did we reach the point of abortion? From a candid conversation in Spain waiting for a train? (Please congratulate me on the point of making that last sentence rhyme). Okay. This story has a few symbols. The most important one, according to me, are "white elephants". According to the Oxford Dictionary, a white elephant is "A possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of." This is quite relevant, as a baby, especially in an unwanted one, back in 1927, would have been extremely hard to take care of.

Actually, what I found most interesting about this story, and my personal connection to it was the difference between talking, and communicating. The couple does a lot of talking but does not seem to be able to tell each other and communicate their point of view effectively. We see them arguing about an abortion, but they do not call it by the name, only as an "operation". We see that the woman wants to keep the baby, but it is obvious that the man wants to have nothing to do with the baby.

The quote that I feel was really controversial in this story follows:

"Do you feel better?" he asked. 

"I feel fine," she said. 'There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine." 

This was  controversial to me because it could mean two entirely different things. Either that:

a) The woman decides to have the abortion and is blindly (and numbly) following all that the man says.

OR

b) The woman decided to keep the baby, implying that nothing was wrong in having a baby, therefore, she is disobeying the man and following her own lead.

I would strongly recommend reading this short story; it's really nice. I'll have the link below. 

If you were one of my readers that reads my blog for fun, then I'm sorry... I'll have a proper blogpost maybe by next week. (I'm so busy, there's too much work).

Here's the link: Hills Like White Elephants