In this essay we will look at Earnest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” as an example of his use of the minimalist technique, what that technique is, and what its overall effect has on the reader. What is minimalism and how did Hemingway use this technique in “Hills Like White Elephants”? The primary effect of Minimalism in modern prose is to place the control of the work back onto the reader. That is to say, the reader is forced to play an active or participatory role in both the visual and emotional aesthetic of the story.
Whereas more vividly detailed works by authors such as Falkner and Joyce paint a picture and color in the details of character and setting for the reader, so that the reader becomes a passive viewer, Hemingway sets out to include the reader by using non-descript language with an extremely sparse use of adverbs and adjectives. In other words, what is not said becomes as important as what is said, and what is said is suggestive of so much more. Hemingway himself articulated this most cleverly when he “compared his method to the principle of the iceberg: ‘There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows. ” (367).
Hemingway’s description of the hills in the distance is extremely bare-boned. He gives us so little: “On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. ” (368) He never goes on to say what the other side looked like, leaving that up to the reader’s imagination, memory, and experience. Furthermore, the description he does set up tells only of what was not. “There was no shade and no trees…” What is a reader to make of this?
The Essay on Hemingways Hills Like White Elephants, A Critical Inquiry
Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway In Ernest Hemingway s Hills Like White Elephants, the two main characters, Jig and the unnamed American man, are at a train station in Spain trying to decide whether or not they (actually just Jig) should go through with an abortion. The first time I read the story it wasn t very clear to me what type of an operation it was that they were talking ...
In a minimalist work, the reader becomes, in a sense, another writer, using clues from the circumstances of the story and then putting them together based on personal experience, memory, and imagination. In this way, the reader is not counting on the writer to give a message or a moral to the story or to guide them into liking or disliking one character over another. Rather, it mimics reality, forcing the reader to play an active role in filling in the spaces with details, not unlike a filling in the outline of a drawing with color. It can be argued, that this involvement of the reader is at the center of minimalism’s grand effect.
Hemingway continues with this impersonal objective narrative style throughout the story. Hemingway never describes the way in which “the American” or “the girl” looked; in fact—that’s up to you as the reader to imagine based on the context of the story and based on your own life. We know the American is a man and that the girl is probably not American because he describes her as simply a girl as if in contrast to “The American. ” As a reader, again, this involves you in the writing in that you are expected, in order to engage the story fully, to be able to provide your own details.
What did the girl look like? What color is her hair? What did she smell like? How old was she, etc. One specific syntactical example of Hemingway’s minimalism in this story is in the way he used the dialogue tags “he said” or “she said”, forcing the reader to arrive at the emotion from the actual dialogue. This leads to far greater complexity and depth within the characters. Instead of having a narrator describe these emotions, we see the situation take place as from the perspective of a fly on the wall, with no access to the psyche or emotional state of the characters.
Without such access, we as readers involve ourselves, place our own lives and experiences into the story, thereby positing ourselves as part-writer. A byproduct of this is that emotion is removed from the text. Hemingway is not trying to convince the reader to sympathize with a character’s emotions, but rather he forces the emotions to come directly from the reader. While minimalism is often explained as a “bare boned” stylistic approach, the effect, ultimately, is that it’s the reader, not the writer, who puts the flesh on the bones. Thematically, this minimalist technique Hemingway employs here has a similar effect.
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While one could easily say that this is a story about a man and a woman who are discussing whether or not she woman should have an abortion, Hemingway avoids vague, abstract, and unnecessary words to convey a subtler implication through dialogue. Indeed, one could say that this is a story about miscommunication, about a rift that exists between the two characters, an American who is insensitive and will say just about anything to convince the girl that she ought to have the procedure. Neither of the two characters truly communicates with the other. Both speak, but neither of the two truly listens.
When they first receive their drinks, for example, and “…the girl was looking off at the line of hills,” (368) she attempts to reach out to him emotionally through the use of a symbol when she says, “They look like white elephants. ” (368) But the American does not receive this in the way she might have hoped. He simply says, “I’ve never seen one,” (368) and then he continues to drink his beer. This disconnect between the two is clear and evident. It’s also worth noting that the fact that these two drink throughout their conversation further suggests a move away from understanding and from clarity and honest communication.
Hemingway does not ever explicitly use the word “abortion”, nor does he state that she is “pregnant”, but this theme is implied. He relies on description and setting to convey a notion of this onerous decision. It is his use of dialogue that makes his minimalist technique most effective in expressing the real moral and importance of this story. For example, Hemingway never tells us that the American is perhaps an insensitive character who tries to manipulate the emotions of the girl, but it is surely implied. For example, on page 369, the American says to her, “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig.
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It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in. ” And then the girl does not say anything. So the American continues, “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural. ” There is a clear sense fear of one posits onto the emotional state of the girl who must make a weighty decision here, one which involves both life and death, but the American is willing to make great light of the situation and play the procedure off as something simple and natural.
This minimalistic effect through the dialogue allows the reader to come to his or her own conclusions as to the emotional state of the characters, placing him or her, again, at the center of the writing itself. With regards to imagery, the minimalist technique Hemingway employs compounds the sense of emotion in the story. His vivid descriptions of setting, though sparse, force the reader to focus on these components and insert focus on these details more closely for a deeper, more personal understanding. For example, Hemingway uses simple description of setting and elusive imagery.
The vague illustration of “the hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white” (368) forces the reader to question why this detail is given. It invokes images of an expecting mother’s rounded stomach. But instead of stating this image, he uses the symbol to suggest this, which, as a reader, one is actively filling in the spaces, drawing up the image its implication him or herself. Another good example of minimalism in imagery in comes on page 368 when the American says “It’s pretty hot. ” Twice the reader is told that “it’s pretty hot” (248) and this “climate” creates a sense of intensity in the conversation between the two.
Their “heated” conversation about whether or not to go through with the abortion puts the girl in the “hot seat”, so to speak, for her to come to this weighty decision on her own. Making these connections as a reader adds weight to the metaphorical meanings of the story but making it personal. This style of writing necessarily involves the reader in forming his or her own pictures, placing the him or her at the very center of the writing of the story itself, and this is, perhaps, the most striking effect of Hemingway’s minimalism in “Hills Like White Elephants. ”
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