After reading “Hills Like White Elephants”, I immediately thought “Sex”! The way the two characters went at each other reminded me of a show from the 1980’s called “The Wonder Years” in which two teenagers who knew each other, while growing up, experienced many of the “teen-like” issues, some of which include; first kiss, and first time having sex. The way the man and the girl sort-of argued made it seem like a teenage drama on whether to have sex or not. For example, on page 168, the girl says “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?”, then the guy replies “I love you now. You know I love you”. To me, this seems like a typical dispute that teenagers will go through about having sex because the female might think that the only reason the guy is with her is to have sex, and then wont “love” her anymore –like we know what the hell that means-. Or the teenage couple might be afraid of their relationship losing its passion after the introduction of sex.
Personally, I didn’t understand what role or motif the alcohol, and beer played in the story. I did not see the point of mentioning it other than it being used as the conversation topic for the couple, and an attention grabber for the audience. Maybe I’m missing something… In addition, I was particularly interested in the way that the story started. Seeing that we are all pretty much young adults, drinking alcohol and partying (I speak in general terms) is a HUGE part of our life, for the most part. So including that in the introduction really grabbed my attention.
Something that particularly kept me at a conundrum was the fact that the story turned out to be about abortion. I am satisfied that I came somewhere close to the topic, but I believe that the author can be quite misleading at times. For example, on page 167 “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”, then “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig, it’s really not anything, it’s just to let the air in”. Particularly, the confusing part was determining what “Jig” really is! At first I thought it was a sexual position of some sort, because initially, I thought that the story was about something dealing with sex. The only logical thing to do is follow that thought process. Overall, it was an interesting and captivating story to read that took a strange twist, although its slight ambiguity (In my opinion) was annoying, it gave the story its fascinating characteristic.
