Week 4 Response
were left unanswered. For my response I would like to bring my perspective of what the
underlying meaning of this short story really is. The author doesn’t give much of a description
of the man and women at the bar but he does say that their luggage was covered in labels from
hotels that they had stayed at [Ern041]. From this I inferred that they had been traveling for some
time and as they began to say that everything use to be fine and after she has the operation
everything will be fine again I inferred that they were talking about an abortion.
If they keep this baby, they cannot continue to live their lives in the same way. They will
be forced to settle down somewhere and take on parenthood. The man is not ready for that kind
of lifestyle just yet and that’s why he is pushing the idea of an abortion. He even tries to say that
an abortion “Just lets the air in and it’s all perfectly natural” [Ern041] as well as compare her to
other women who have had the operation and are happy.
Another big shock to me was the fact that she still was drinking, even though she was
unsure on whether or not to keep the baby. She uses the waitress and ordering beers to keep her
male lover from digging too deep into the conversation of the abortion. She doesn’t care about
what she feels, she just wants everything to be as it used to be. She even tells her lover that she
doesn’t care about herself[Ern041]. This is another reason why she is drinking, if she doesn’t
care about herself, why would she care about her unborn child? If she keeps drinking she is
going to harm her baby, if she hasn’t already. She may be using that to make the operation
mentally seem to be the right way to go.
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During our discussion on “Hills like White Elephants” there were a lot of questions that
