Saturday, March 21, 2015

What is the point of view in "Hills Like White Elephants"?

I think that the third person narrative point of view is
used in a stellar manner in Hemingway's short story.  One of the elements that makes the
third person point of view so effective is that it helps to recreate a moment in time. 
In his book, Testaments Betrayed, Milan Kundera suggests that part
of what makes this story so powerful is that the third person point of view is mastered
to recreate a conversation in time.  If one reflects on this, it is a difficult task to
accomplish for every time we consider our own past and a past moment in time, it turns
out that our own point of view colors the event, making exact recreation impossible.  At
the same time, the web of language is one where a moment can be hinted at or intimated,
but never fully recreated so that another person can recognized exactly the moment as
the characters involved.  Hemingway's style of the third person narration is one where
"the tip of the iceberg" is exposed, meaning that there is much more present in the
conversation and in the moment, but the point of view allows the reader to fully explore
this "tip" while recognizing that much more exists and much more is present.  The point
of view helps to deliver the themes in a strong manner.  In doing so, we, as the reader,
receive an almost "bird's eye view" of what is happening, whereby we understand the
situation in perfect detail and are left to our own choices for interpretation, just as
the main characters are left to their own choices and the implications that result from
the predicament.

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