It's All in The Name (or Lack Thereof) - Hills Like White Elephants

    A subtle yet necessary aid in reinforcing the characters' qualities in Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" in is the selection of their 'names'. It is in their names that theme is reinforced cueing you into their personalities and how they are to be perceived. It is yet another way that a story with so little direct information assists you in understanding who the characters are and why they behave as they do. 

    In this story we are introduced to three characters, The American, the girl (who we later learn as 'Jig") and the woman set against the backdrop somewhere in Spain. There are immediate assumptions that can be inferred solely by the title given to the man in story, 'the American'. The first and most obvious - foreign, adventitious. This is supported by his attitude toward to the abortion, how Jig is processing the ordeal and his inability to understand and communicate beyond his own lens of the world. Throughout the story he trivializes the procedure ("lt's really an awfully simple operation...", "They just let the air in then it's all perfectly natural.", "It's the only thing that bothers us", "I've known lots of people that have done it".) while losing Jig's perspective in translation, hearing her but not listening to her. He cannot begin to understand the gravity of the situation, much less who it may weigh on Jig. Nor can he see the world as broadly and honestly as she can. It's most evident in his responses to her ("We can have everything", "We can have the whole world", "We can go everywhere", "It's ours", "But they haven't taken it away", "You mustn't feel that way"). There is an air of arrogance in him that refuses to effectively receive what Jig is relaying to her because he is too busy trying to manipulate her for his own spoiled and selfish reasons. These are also perceived assumptions of an American traits - arrogant, entitled and spoiled. 

    As far Jig, she is first referred to as simply "the girl". Initially she is assumed to have less significance and to be an extension of the man ("The American and the girl with him..."). Also 'the girl' lends to the idea of youth, naiveté and inexperience. It helps to support the idea that she is malleable and susceptible to the man's will and his manipulation. However as the story progresses, she is given a name - Jig, providing her a more human quality. But since Jig appears to be a nickname, it manages to keep her with a childlike quality. Noteworthily, the girl's humanness is given via an actual name, while the man is deprived of humanity by never receiving one, which symbolize their sensitivity and insensitivity around life respectively. 

    Though the American and the girl (Jig) are the two primary characters, the woman, in her seemingly obscure presence, helps also to drive the theme and assist in supporting the dynamic between the couple. Titled as "the woman", she represents the thing that stands in between the couple. At first she is the block in the couple both being able to communicate in a foreign space - literally and figuratively. The American can speak the language and talk to the woman, while the girl cannot. This is the figurative difficulty the couple is having in being able to communicate in this difficult, unfamiliar situation. Later, the woman interrupts the couple at the height of their conflict symbolizing the evolution of Jig. Jig's womanhood is evolving at this moment, claiming her own right and liberating herself from the man's constant manipulation ("I'll scream"). In Jig taking agency over herself and affirming the woman in her, she symbolically, "smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her". 

    The choice to not name the characters prevents you from fully relating to the character and rather allows you to focus on their story. Their perspectives and feelings are at the forefront - not them. It brilliantly reinforces how themes and the unsaid tells the story and not the characters.