The Minimalist Technique of Hemingway in "Hills Like White Elephants"

Ernest Hemingway's impersonal objective narrative style is best exhibited in his short story, "Hills Like White Elephants", which describes a young girl and her older American boyfriend discussing whether or not she should have an abortion. Hemingway never explicitly uses the word abortion, but instead relies on the description and details of the setting to convey an idea of this weighty decision. It is his use of imagery, symbols, and dialogue that makes his minimalist …

…more thought provoking. His use of imagery, symbols, and dialogue in "Hills Like White Elephants" provides the purest form of storytelling and allows it to be free from opinion by telling it as it is. His preference for simplicity in writing makes for complexity in significance. He reveals only the tip of the iceberg and lets the hidden base below to be only imagined. Hemingway has surely showed how in writing less is actually more.