Setting
·
At a train station in the Eastern Spain on the Ebro River
in the early 1920s
Point of View
·
The omniscient narrator comes only at the
beginning and the end of the story
Characters
·
Hemingway does not describe characters
·
Their characteristics reveal themselves through
their speech
Jig
·
Jig means a dance, a fool, or even sexual desire
·
A modern woman – her nationality is not
specified
·
She asserts her rights by having an affair with
a man she is not married to
·
But she is reluctant to have the abortion
·
She shows her reluctance indirectly at first
o The
girl looked at the ground the table leg rested on
o The
girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two strings
of beads
·
Then she asks a series of questions
o You
think then we’ll be alright and be happy?
o And
if I do it you will be happy and things will be like they were and you will
love me?
·
Later she tells the American, “Would you please,
please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking.”
·
However, ultimately she agrees to have the
abortion
The American
·
Is not named – Is he the universal American?
·
Presented as an opportunistic Capitalist male
interested in his pleasure alone
·
He uses the ideology of the Feminist movement to
satisfy his needs
·
When the girl asks whether he would continue to
love her, he states “I love you now” and avoid long term commitments
·
He does not want the responsibility of a child
so he downplays the danger of the operation
·
“It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig …
It is not really an operation at all”
·
But insisted that he was not at all forcing her
to do it – “I don’t want you to do anything…”
·
In the meanwhile he manipulates the woman by
ignoring her observations about the hills until she agrees to do what she
wanted
Themes
Reason vs. emotions
·
The American represents rational thinking; Jig
is emotional – she wants to keep the baby
Individuality and morality
·
Both the man and the woman want to satisfy
desires without the traditional bonds
·
The man does not consider the immorality of
abortion
·
He says, “I’ve known lots of people that have
done it.”
·
Hemingway never mentions the word ‘abortion’ –
it is mentioned euphemistically as letting “air in” or “operation”
·
During this time abortion was still illegal but
a topic of heated debates
Patriarchy and the feminist
movement
·
Feminist movement was working to give women
freedom from male dominance
·
The man is using that freedom to satisfy his
carnal desires without fulfilling his responsibilities
Techniques
Symbols
·
White Elephants – symbolize immature
self-delusion in the woman – the hills are neither elephant-like nor white
·
Bead curtain, liquorices – the exotic lifestyle the man and the woman
leading
·
Train station, train, baggage – transient
lifestyle, a life on the move – nothing is fixed or permanent
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