Humanities faculty analyze Hemingway's short story

Five University professors gathered yesterday for an interdisciplanary discussion of Earnest Hemingway's short story, "Hills Like White Elephants."

History professor Anthony Grafton welcomed a sizable audience to the James Stewart '32 Theater. He joined creative writing program faculty Joyce Carol Oates and Edmund White, English professor Maria DiBattista and history professor Sean Wilentz for the lecture, which was sponsored by the Humanities Council.

In the context of his or her discipline, each scholar approached the story — a famous, dialogue-heavy tale of a man and a woman discussing abortion without directly addressing the matter.

Conversation roamed freely from White's particular attention to modes of expression and Hemingway's underlying values, DiBattista's consideration of tone and style, Oates' emphasis on the author's aesthetic mastery and Wilenz' speculations on historical significance.

White opened the discussion by suggesting that Hemingway's bare and simple style in the story implies a harsh, uncompromising judgment against abortion, the subject of the story.

"There is something tranquilizing about the very plain language, an invocation of values that [he makes] feel like instincts," White said.

White said Hemingway represents abortion as the choice of "sterile hedonism."

Though DiBattista agreed with White's impression of stagnation in the beginning of the story, she said Hemingway leaves an element of hope towards the end when the female protagonist looks from the train's platform to find "the hills replenished."

"The power of the story is in the lamentation about living things like hearts and elephants turned to stone," DiBattista said.

Oates dismissed the relevance of any kind of meaning or moral within the story.

"If [Hemingway] wanted to send a message, he'd send a telegram," she said.

Instead, Oates focused on the beauty, what she called the "grace under pressure" of Hemingway's prose.

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Oates described the work as "short, powerful, really exemplary" and said the story fully "realizes the balance between fluidity of narration and background of exposition."

Wilentz gave the discussion some historical perspective with an explanation of the context of the story, Spain in the 1920s. He said that, according to his research, this time and location of the characters in a train station could represent the "halfway point" between progressive Barcelona and more traditional Madrid.

Oates countered that rather than a historical motivation, Hemingway most likely was "seizing an opportunity" to write about a woman he had met at a bar.

"I know writers too well," she said with a smile. "He saw an opportunity for a very good short story."