MY CONCERN

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANT BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY

                When I was in Semester 6, in EDU3214 Teaching The language Of Short Stories, we were assigned to discuss the characterization of one the listed short stories given by Dr Edwin. I always admire him for his widest knowledge and experience. To be one of his students was a great opportunity for me.

He had listed 8 stories altogether. At first, I don’t know which is the best or the simplest story for me. As a PJJ student, time is very consuming. After I have read all the stories, then I knew that this is the story. Again, the story I chose is about woman and decision she that she make for her future.

The story is about a young couple but they are not married and the polemic issue of abortion. Though the word ‘abortion’ is nowhere in the story, it is doubtlessly understood through Hemmingway’s powerful use of two literary elements, setting and symbolism. The story defines a two-part theme. The first is a commentary about the way selfishness can corrupt a relationship. The second comments on life and what it means to bear life. Though the setting is heavily symbolic, and characters are drawn mostly in dialogue, both are strongly evocative of the theme.   

Everyday people make decisions that affect their future lives. The man wants the girl to do the abortion while the girl is not sure. The tension between the two is almost as sizzling as the heat of the Spanish sun. Conflict is created through dialogue as these characters face what most readers believe to be the obstacle of an unexpected pregnancy.

From the man’s point of view, the hills don’t look like white elephants, and the hills certainly don’t have skins. The girl, however, have move away from the rational world of the man and into her own world of the intuition, in which she seemingly knows that the things that she desires will never fulfilled. This insight is best illustrated when she look across the river and sees fields of fertile grain and the river, the fertility of the land, contrasted to the barren sterility of the hills like the white elephants. She, of course, desires the beauty, loveliness, and fertility of the fields of grain, but she knows that she has to be content with the barren sterility of an imminent abortion and the continued presence of a man who is an inadequate. What she will ultimately do is beyond the scope of the story.

                During the very short exchanges between the man and the girl, she changes from someone who is completely dependent upon the man to someone who is surer of herself and more aware of what to expect from him. At the end of their conversation, she takes control of herself and of the situation: She no longer acts in her former childlike way. She tells the man to please shut up and note that the word “please” is repeated seven times, indicating that she is overwhelmingly tired of his hypocrisy and his continual harping on the same subject.  

               Actually, deep in my heart I am very concern of these phenomena. The pregnancies out of wedlock and abortions among teenagers are our critical social ills nowadays. As a muslim, a teacher, a woman and a mother, I always pray to ALLAH S.W.T that all of us will be always protected by HIM. Amiin…