hillslikewhiiteelephants赏析.doc

He Knows Nothing about What She Needs Abstract: This essay, through analyzing the discrepancy between the perceptions of the landscape near the station and between their perceptions of love of the two characters in Hills like White Elephants, tries to prove that the disillusion of a settled and happy life of Jig is nevertheless inevitable. Key words: conceptions towards the landscape; conceptions of love; white elephant; disillusion Introduction Hills like White Elephants tells a simple story: a couple, Jig and the American, is waiting for their express to Madrid at a train station and is observed in conflict over Jig’s impending abortion. Although Earnest Hemingway has not stated directly what will become of the couple at the end, he suggests that, no matter whether Jig decides to have the operation or not, she can not expect marriage and responsibility from the American. This essay, through analyzing the discrepancy between the perceptions of the landscape near the station and between their perceptions of love of the two characters in Hills like White Elephants, tries to prove that the disillusion of a settled and happy life of Jig is nevertheless inevitable. Different Perceptions of the Landscape The landscape described in the short story is both barren and fruitful, and this scenic dichotomy comes to embody both Jig’s and the American’s sentiments regarding the abortion. On one side of the station, “there was no shade and no trees”, and “the hills were white in the sun, and the country was brown and dry”. Jig naturally associates the white hills she is looking at with the swollen breasts and abdomen of a pregnant woman, since she secretly yet wholeheartedly hopes that their unborn child, an extraordinary gift, can serve as an end to her mundane life of drinking and mindless traveling, which, though used to be exciting and attractive, now turns to be something of a metaphorical white elephant to her. To her, life after the abo