Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

. Ernest Hemingway’s stories are often written from the dramatic third person point of view. This means that the stories are in third person which means that there is no “I” voice and that all of the pronouns used are “he,” “she,” “they,” etc. There are then different kinds of third person point of views. The omniscient third person point of view is one in which not only the speech and action of the characters is known, but their inner thoughts as well. Dramatic third person point of view means that the author DOES NOT reveal what the characters are thinking, only their actions and their speech, just as if the characters were in a play on a stage. If you’ve ever seen a real play production, you’ll remember that you never heard the thoughts of the characters, only what they said out loud, either to other characters or to themselves, but it was actual speech. What are the effects of Hemingway’s use of the dramatic third person point of view in this story? How does this point of view affect our perception of the characters and what’s taking place between them? Come up with at least three distinct effects of this third person point of view on the story and discuss them.