Hills Like White Elephants

Ernest Hemingway's short story titled "Hills Like White Elephants" is set in Spain. An American man and a girl are sitting at an outdoor café in a Spanish train station, waiting for a fast, non-stop train coming from Barcelona that will take them to Madrid, where the girl will have an operation (presumably abortion). The story opens with a long description of the train station surrounded by hills, fields and trees in a valley. In the story, the writer refers to the Ebro River and to the bare, sterile-looking mountains on one side of the train station and to the fertile plains on the other.

It is hot, and the man orders two beers. The girl remarks that the nearby hills look like white elephants, to which the American responds that he has never seen one. They order more drinks and begin to bicker about the taste of the alcohol. The American chastises her and says that they should try to enjoy themselves. The girl replies that she is merely having fun and then retracts her earlier comment by saying that the hills do not actually look like white elephants to her anymore.

They order more drinks, and the American mentions that he wants the girl, whom he calls “Jig”, to have an operation, although he never actually specifies what kind of operation. He seems agitated and tries to downplay the operation’s seriousness. He argues that the operation would be simple, for example, but then says the procedure really is not even an operation at all.

The girl says nothing for a while, but then she asks what will happen after she has had the operation. The man answers that things will be fine afterward, just like they were before, and that it will fix their problems. He says he has known a lot of people who have had the operation and found happiness afterward. The girl dispassionately agrees with him. The American then claims that he will not force her to have the operation but thinks it is the best course of action to take. She tells him that she will have the operation as long as he will still love her and they will be able to live happily together afterward.

The man then emphasises how much he cares for the girl, but she claims not to care about what happens to herself. The American weakly says that she should not have the operation if that is really the way she feels. The girl then walks over to the end of the station, looks at the scenery, and wonders aloud whether they really could be happy if she has the operation. They argue for a while until the girl gets tired and makes the American promise to stop talking.

The Spanish bartender brings two more beers and tells them that the train is coming in five minutes. The girl smiles at the bartender but has to ask the American what she said because the girl does not speak Spanish. After finishing their drinks, the American carries their bags to the platform and then walks back to the bar, has a beer there, and notices all the other people who are also waiting for the train. He asks the girl whether she feels better. She says she feels fine and that there is nothing wrong with her.

The story describes sizzling tension between the two characters. The man, while urging the girl to have the operation, says again and again that he really does not want her to do it if she really does not want to. However, he is clearly insisting that she do so. The girl is trying to be brave and nonchalant but is clearly frightened of committing herself to having the operation. She tosses out a conversational, fanciful figure of speech —the hills "look like white elephants".  She seems to refer are like white elephants in their bareness and round, protruding shape. The "white elephant" is a term used to refer to something that requires much care and yields little profit. She uses this figure of speech hoping to please the man, but he resents her ploy. He insists on talking even more about the operation and the fact that, according to what he has heard, it is "natural" and "not really an operation at all".

Finally, the express train arrives and the two prepare to board. The girl tells the man that she is "fine". She is lying, acquiescing to what he wants, hoping to quieten him. Nothing has been solved. The tension remains. The girl is hurt by the man's unreliable empathy, and she is also deeply apprehensive about the operation.We get to feel about the abortion from the dialogue that the man says : "But I don't want anybody but you. I don't want anyone else. And I know it's perfectly simple."

Writing Style : In this story, the writer completely removes himself from the story. He does not describe the characters or what they are going to do and leaves everything to the reader's guess. He gives no clue to the reader. He has not used the words like "sarcastically," or "bitterly," or "angrily," or that she was "puzzled" or "indifferent," or "the man spoke with an air of superiority", a reader would more easily come to terms with the characters. Instead, the writer so removes himself from them and their actions that it seems as though he himself knows little about them. Only by sheer accident, it seems, is the girl nicknamed "Jig", tells that they had stayed at several hotels and that they were going to Madrid.

The writer presents only the conversation between them and allows his reader to draw his own conclusions. Thus, it can be assumed that these two people are not married. Were these two people, the man and the girl, to have this child, their incessant wanderings might have to cease and they would probably have to begin a new lifestyle for themselves; additionally, they might have to make a decision whether or not they should marry and legitimise the child.

Everything the story indicates that the man definitely wants the girl to have an abortion, and his honesty is under question. When he says, "If you don't want to you don't have to. I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to," he is not convincing. Seemingly, he definitely seems to be very unresponsive to the girl's feelings.

On the other hand, we feel that the girl is not at all sure if she wants an abortion. She is ambivalent about the choice. We sense that she is tired of travelling, of letting the man make all the decisions, of allowing the man to talk incessantly until he convinces her that his way is the right way.

When the man promises to be with the girl during the "simple" operation, we again realize his insincerity because what is "simple" to him may very well be emotionally and physically damaging to her.

During the very short exchanges between the man and the girl, she changes from someone who is almost completely dependent upon the man to someone who is more sure of herself and more aware of what to expect from him. At the end of their conversation, she takes control of herself and of the situation: She no longer acts in her former childlike way. She tells the man to please shut up — and note that the word "please" is repeated seven times, indicating that she is overwhelmingly tired of his hypocrisy and his continual harping on the same subject. Still she agrees to have the operation.

Thus we see that the writer leaves much to the guess of the reader; this is the reason that a new reader would find nothing in the story in the first read.