Ernest
Hemingway introduces two characters in this short story, the American man and
the girl, Jig, right away I can tell there was a relationship involved.
They quickly have a back and forth conversation that really was not a
conversation but just as I throw a phrase here then you throw a phrase there,
which in my opinion was headed nowhere. But what seemed like nothing, in fact
was a very important interaction for each other’s lives. This, taking place in
just under an hour, gave a lot of insight of what seemed like a transformative decision.
As
they have some alcoholic beverages, the American man randomly brings up the
theme by saying, “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig” “It’s not
really an operation at all” He states, “It’s really not anything. It’s just to
let the air in.” This insinuates that once you let the air in, something else
must be let out, in this case, abortion. They spoke about what this may do to their
happiness. Their happiness before and if they would still have this happiness
when and if it happens.
Irony
in this short story is that they are located at a junction, where two roads
meet, literally very similar to their life situation, they have to choose the
right path. If they abort, will they be happy? If they don’t, will they be
happy or even remain together? Bringing up the “White elephants” mentioned by
the girl has a symbolic form of expressing, “the line of hills” as stated in
the story, is to divert the theme to a happy place and not an uncomfortable
one.
As I read, I realized this interaction gets nowhere because in the end the American asks the girl, “Do you feel better?” She replies, “I feel fine” shows a lot of signs that this sarcasm towards the end, sounds to me like he makes it seem like a “you”, the girl situation and not the “we” situation, the American and the girl.
I agree with you on about how she says she's fine but never said "WE are fine". It leaves me thinking about what's going on in her head. The American man doesn't want the baby at all and he's selfish in my opinion throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteI liked that you mentioned how the conversation seemed like it was headed nowhere, when really the phrases thrown around were actually really important to understanding the duality between the two.
ReplyDeleteGood blog post.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I had to re-read the story multiple times as I found it very hard to understand. My first journal was all over the place.
I liked how you dedicated a paragraph to the irony of the story. Definitely an interesting detail in the story that the two are located at a junction where two roads meet - as a decision must be made. Which path are they going to take? Or are they going separate ways?