Hemingway is best known for his novels, especially The Old Man and the Sea, which won him both a Pulitzer Prize and was cited by the Nobel Committee when they awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was also a well-known adventurer, war veteran, and world traveler.
His writing style was very influential among modernist writers-it is sparse and clean, but upon close reading, reveals great depths. In his 1932 novel Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway had this to say about writers, and it tells us a great deal about his approach to his own work:
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.
The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. (192)
This is called Hemingway's "Iceberg Theory" and it certainly applies to "Hills Like White Elephants."
Please answer one of the following questions about the story. When you respond, be sure to reply to at least one classmate who chose the other option.
1. Identify and explain something Hemingway has included in this story that helps the reader figure out what is being discussed--without him ever having to say it. (You may need to figure out the topic of their conversation first). There are clues everywhere, but Hemingway doesn't like to share them too overtly. Let's find them together. Make sure you not only identify these clues but explain what they mean. (Examples--the landscape, the beaded curtains, the luggage, the elephant Jig mentions, even the dialogue).
2. Using the iceberg theory from the introduction, choose something else besides the operation you think has been omitted from the story and decide whether Hemingway has written "truly" enough so that you "have a feeling of [that thing] as strongly as though the writer had stated [it]." It's all right to select something you believe to be minor (it may not be minor at all). If you use the same answer as another student, be sure you are adding something new to the conversation.