Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Pay No Attention To The Elephants Behind The Curtain

Hemingway is interesting because he is so realistic. His story “Hills Like White Elephants” is simply a conversation, a dialogue – which feels very authentic, and there are no clues or metaphors from the author for the reader to interpret in regards to the story’s “meaning.” I have had uncomfortable conversations like this (although with differing subject matter), and I totally relate to the woman’s comment about the hills looking like white elephants. The comment is an escape, a flight of fancy, something to point away from harsh reality. For me personally, it might be a reference to Seinfeld or the Office, something to get a laugh and further stall the seriousness waiting in the wings.

It appears that she does this knowingly, as she acknowledges, “I was being amused. I was having a fine time […] I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn’t that bright?” She seems content to continue the verbal façade, but the man is too eager to interject reality into the conversation. I wonder, though, if she is really content to pretend, or if she is just too vulnerable emotionally to talk about the realities of the situation?

Considering this vulnerability, we see her use different communication tactics to try and say what she is feeling without really saying it. One example is her use of sarcasm, when, responding to her lover’s insistence that he’s “known lots of people that have done it,” she counters, “So have I […] And afterwards they were all so happy.” Subsequently, she gives the rhetorically extreme argument “Because I don’t care about me” as her reason for being willing to go through with the abortion. This is obvious hyperbole, and I suspect her real meaning might be: ‘you don’t care about me.’

As the conversation intensifies, and she comes closer to having to say what she really wants to say, she begs of him, “Can’t we maybe stop talking?” However, the man refuses, and his comment that he’s willing to through with the pregnancy “if it means anything to you,” drivers her over the edge.

Doesn’t it mean anything to you,” she retorts incredulously?

Here we see her true feelings on the subject, feelings that are not reciprocated when her lover insists that, while it does mean something to him, “I don’t want anybody but you. I don’t want anyone else.”

Thus rebuffed, she recedes back into her defenses, once again pleading, “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” She even threatens to scream when he won’t drop the subject. Conversation moves back to more superficial matters, such as the train’s ETA, and the narrative ends with her cold, closed declaration: “I feel fine […] There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”

Everything is back where it started. They’ve had a conversation, but he hasn’t heard her. And so it will continue…

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