BIOGRAPHY (1899–1961) Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway became a reporter after graduating from high school. During World War I, he served as an ambulanceservice volunteer in France and an infantryman in Italy, where he was wounded and decorated for valor. After the war, he lived for a time in Paris, part of the “Lost Generation” of American expatriates such as Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Two volumes of stories, In Our Time (1925) and Death in the Afternoon (1932), and two major novels, The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929), established his international reputation. Hemingway supported the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War—the subject of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)—served as a war correspondent during World War II, and from 1950 until his death lived in Cuba. His novel The Old Man and the Sea (1952) won a Pulitzer Prize, and Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Reading Questions 1. You should be warned: Hemingway, especially in this story, requires a great deal of patience and attention from a reader. As in many of his works, the story seems to be told objectively, with little emotion, as if it were simply being reported. The author offers little help to the reader in understanding what is "behind" the story, giving only a few moments of action where much is left unsaid, only hinted at. Every detail counts as you reconstruct the "story behind the story." 2. Where and approximately when is this story set? What sort of scene do you picture? 3. This story combines sparse description and dialogue. It may help to mark which person is speaking, especially when "he said" and "she said" are missing. What details of setting or dialogue stand out for you as important in the story? Look at those carefully. How do you picture the two characters, "Jig" and "the American"? Do these "names" seem significant? 4. The main topic of conversation in the story is never named—the "awfully simple operation." What do you think that might be and why? Why is it not stated explicitly? Begin your exploration by constructing what the characters' relationship is and has been. What clues do you find? Where might you detect self-delusion, insincerity, or sarcasm in their conversation? Do they seem to be expressing their feelings or avoiding them? How can you tell that they are at some point of crisis? Re-Reading Questions 1. There are many details in the story which bear consideration: the comparison of the hills to white elephants, the bead curtain in the doorway, the description of the absinthe, the landscape, the train tracks, and, of course, the unspecified operation. Perhaps you see others as well. Assume that these details are a kind of shorthand to the emotional landscape beneath the story. What might they be suggesting about the relationship of the two people and their particular situation at this point? 2. Carefully re-read the dialogue—perhaps even join with a friend to read it out loud. Add the emotional overtones which are only hinted at in the story. Are there different ways in which the dialogue could be read that might change a reader's sympathies with either character? 3. The story appears to be told objectively, but is it? What indication do you see of a narrator? Does the narrator seem to be male or female? Is there any sign that the narrator is judgmental of either or both of the characters? Look in particular at the word "reasonable." 4. Sometimes readers try to read this story in a contemporary time frame and thus fail to realize some of the implications of the situation posed by the time and place. What are some of the elements that could be misinterpreted by making the story contemporary? What are other elements which are not changed by the 70+ year gap in time? 5. What sort of resolution does the crisis of the story have, or does it have none? Why? Does either of the characters change? Imagine what the next paragraph or two might be. Hypertextual Annotations There is an interpretive annotated hypertext of the story online posted for community college classes: a hypertext posted by Professor Eric Hibbison (Virginia Community Colleges Beach City College). Browse through the hypertext and consider the interpretive possibilities it suggests. Are there points which you would expand upon or disagree with? What would you emphasize if you were doing such annotations? What questions would you pose or annotations would you make in addition to the ones alongside the text? Biographical and Historical Context: The Jazz Age and the "Lost Generation Ernest Hemingway was a major figure in the Jazz Age, living for a while in Europe and friendly with literary expatriates F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound, as well as numerous artists and musicians. Traditional values in art and literature, as well as morality, were seriously challenged by the dislocations and disillusions of the First World War which created the so-called " lost generation." Hemingway was especially affected, having been wounded at nineteen while serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy during the war. These Web sites, as well as others listed on the Related Links page, are rich in resources for considering how Hemingway's world may have influenced the style and subjects of his writing, including "Hills Like White Elephants." Consider the story in light of some of the changing values and artistic innovations of the Jazz Age. How does this context help you understand some of the details and gaps in the story? Literary Comparisons As Professor Bryant Mangum relates, Hemingway said of his writing: "If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story." Read "A Clean Well-Lighted Place," "A Very Short Story," and/or "Indian Camp," all of which are definitely "iceberg stories" with many gaps for the reader to fill. Compare the kind of information which is hidden and speculate on how that adds to the stories. Another kind of comparison could be based on the concept of the "zero ending" in several stories, including Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog" (LIT 182, LITS 173) and Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" (LIT 771, LITS 580). From Norton LitWeb (Members Only) --

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