Double-Speak in Plain Style

By Branden Schultz

            Plain Style is great at its job. It can clearly pass on information, and it doesn’t matter if it's meant to be entertaining, informative, or persuasive. For one, it keeps a simple vocabulary and usually has concise sentences, guaranteeing that almost any reader can get something out of it. However, plain style can be used for more than simple language. It can put a spotlight on abstract ideas and themes, while not physically having them within the text. Ernest Hemingway employs this ‘double-speaking’ this in the short story “Hills Like White Elephants”, which touches on hedonism and abortion in its four pages.

“Hills Like White Elephants” is, again, short and has a very simple style. If complexities were crimes, its only charges would be the occasional longer sentence and requiring some familiarity with Spanish currency and alcohol names (or at least the ability to use context clues to figure out what they mean). For some context on “Hills Like White Elephants”, it was originally published in 1927 for the literary magazine Transition, and again later that same year in Hemingway’s short story collection Men Without Women. Transition was a magazine known for having abstract articles that did not directly address their themes, but instead alludes to them. Men Without Women is a selection of Hemingway’s works, which share common themes of hedonism, infidelity, and abortion among them. “Hills Like White Elephants” maintains a simple language that only requires four years of education to understand, according to the Gunning Fog Index. (3.98, specifically).  Pieces written in this style were a norm for Transition, giving Hemingway a specific audience that he would want to maintain circulation with-besides the general, wide-spanning audience that the plain language inherently gives him.

The dialogue is some of the simplest, shortest parts of the story, but has the strongest allusions at the same time. A husband and wife are on a training, with the implication that the wife is pregnant and seeking/considering an abortion. Consider the following excerpt, which can be found after the first introduction paragraph (see “Further Reading” below for the full passage).

"What should we drink?" the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.

"It's pretty hot," the man said.

"Let's drink beer."

"Dos cervezas," the man said into the curtain.

"Big ones?" a woman asked from the doorway.

"Yes. Two big ones."

Again, the dialogue is very simple. The longest spoken sentence is four words, but already there’s emphasis that they’re drinking ‘big’ ones (notice the repetition). There is also an implied detachment with the man speaking into the curtain, as if he is issuing dismissive orders to a waiting servant (which he really is). As soon as the scene starts, the main characters begin drinking, which kicks off their hedonistic behaviors. There’s also signs of a controlling relationship between the two, as the man tries to reign in his wife’s conversation and also convince her that she wants the abortion.

“"Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe." (The girl says), to which the man replies, “Oh cut it out.” Again, the sentences are concise and clear, especially the man’s blunt replies. Regarding my aforementioned accusation that the man is convincing the girl to want the abortion (which is only referenced as an ‘operation’ in the story; another allusion), Hemingway writes, “‘Well’, the man said, ‘if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.’ [The girl replies] ‘And you really want to?’ ‘I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to if you don’t really want to.’” The man puts emphasis that A) there’s no reason to worry about the operation because it’s ‘perfectly simple’, B) the man is still in control of the situation because ultimately he will be the one deciding he he has her do it or not, though he is being ‘good’ by letting her choose if she wants to. It’s a subtle, manipulative way to reassert control, while allowing the girl to have an illusion of choice (even if there is a clear ‘right’ choice). Hemingway does not leave it plainly written for the audience, but the signs and allusions are all within the piece.

In short, plain style is a great way to help ensure that a text maintains a wide circulation of audiences. The more people that can understand a text, the better. However, plain style also allows for a spotlight to be put on allusions and themes, and is done in a way that other styles can not so cleanly replicate. The story is not about the text, but the implications beneath it. There’s a story within a story.

 

Further Reading

“HillsLike White Elephants”