“Hills Like
White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway's depicts the fatal miscommunication
between a couple who can't manage to make a decision on whether a specific
operation should be performed. Katy Perry’s “Hot n’ Cold” closely resembles how
the girl felt and gives an insight to the miscommunication in
the story.
Although the
story is mainly a dialog between two people, they don't truly communicate at
all. Both the American man and the girl talk, but neither listens to each
other's point of view. The lines from the song, “You change your mind like a
girl changes clothes” and “you're hot then you're cold, you're yes then you're
no, you're in then you're out, you're up then you're down” illustrates how the
couple continuously changed their opinions about the abortion. The man will say
anything in order to persuade the girl to have the abortion and the girl
continuously shuffles indecisively around the subject. The man's nickname to
the girl is Jig, which indicates that all they do is “dance” around the issue
without ever saying anything purposeful. They also seem to be “stuck on a
roller coaster” of decisions.
The
lines, “You're no good for me” and “I should know that you're not gonna change”
represents how the gild felt towards the end of the story. Even though the
story doesn't completely reveal what happens at the end, one can infer that the couple
will go their separate ways and Jig will not go through with the abortion.
After endless bickering between the couple, the woman finally makes up her mind
to not kill the life within her. When the American asks her, “Do you feel
better?” Jig answers with, “I feel fine. There's nothing wrong with me. I feel
fine”. The girl meant that there was no reason to kill the child because she
felt she was perfectly fine the way she was.
I can definitely see how you got this correlation from the two subjects! I love Katy Perry, and I’m glad that someone was able to bring one of her songs to represent a symbol in the story. In the song Hot n Cold, I’m glad that you can see that she reflects on not only the bad but also the good! In the story Hills Like White Elephants there is definitely a correlation between the story because of their relationship, the girls hesitation to understand why the boy treats her the way he does. At the end, I definitely feel the same way you do, because if she is stating that she is happy with how she feels and will decide to keep the baby.
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