Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" relies on symbolism to carry the theme of either choosing to live selfishly and dealing with the results, or choosing a more difficult and selfless path and reveling in the rewards. The symbolic materials and the symbolic characters aid the reader's understanding of the subtle theme of this story. The hills symbolize two different decisions that the pregnant girl in our story is faced with. Both hills are completely opposite of each other, and each "hill" or decision has a consequence that is just as different as the appearance of the hills.
Hemingway uses drinking, the hillsides, and a railroad track between the two hills to help convey his theme. The beer in this story is used to represent the couple's usual recreational activity to that they do together. Their recreational activity bothers the girl because "that's all [they] do ' look at things and try new drinks." This gives the reader some suspicion that the girl has......

Join Now to view the rest of this term paper!
Members: Login to view this research paper.

Title: Hills Like White Elephants - Symbolism
Approximate Word Count: 337
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

With the Term Papers Lab Membership Pass, you get instant access to every essay on this site, including this essay on Hills Like White Elephants - Symbolism, for as long as you remain a member.

Other essays sites charge almost $100 for a single term paper. At Term Papers Lab, you can get instant access to over 100,000 research papers for as little as $29.95!