“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
“Hills Like White Elephants” is a story about a young man (the American) and his girlfriend (“the girl”) who are in Spain waiting for a train to Madrid. While there, they are drinking and they have a conversation, in which the subject is hinted, not clearly stated.
Through reading the story a couple of times, the subject of their conversation became clear: abortion. We can recognize the subtle hints given to us.
“‘It’s an awfully simple operation … It’s not really an operation at all.’”
“‘I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.’”
“‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’”
“‘I’ve known lots of people that have done it.’”
“‘You’ve got to realize,’ he said, ‘that I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you.’
‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you? We could get along.’” (“It” being the child)
The thing about this situation is that the guy wants her to get an abortion, but she is hesitant about it. It seems like she wants to keep it. We can see this change reflected in her two contradictions about the hills.
In the beginning, she tells him that the hills look like white elephants, but then later on, she says that they don’t after all. In fact, she says the second time that they are lovely hills, and they only looked like the color of white elephant’s skin through the trees.
A white elephant symbolizes something that somebody doesn’t want. In this case, it is the unborn child. At first, saying the hills look like white elephants mean that the baby is unwanted, that they want an abortion. Later on, saying that they don’t look like white elephants, signifying her change of mind and her desire to keep the baby after all. They only looked like the skin of white elephants through the trees, which meant that she wasn’t looking clearly and her boyfriend’s opinion of the matter was influencing her own.
When she first says that the hills look like white elephants, her boyfriend replied that he had never seen one. She says to him that he wouldn’t have. I can’t quite put my finger on what this particular part means, but I think it would refer to either him never having the problem of getting a girl pregnant and therefore an unborn child he didn’t want, or it could refer to the euphemism of “the elephant in the room”. In that context, it could mean that he is oblivious to the obvious problems or situations at hand.
“‘You’ve got to realize,’ he said, ‘that I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you.’
‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you? We could get along.’”
When the guy says that he would go through with it if it meant anything to her, he means that he would keep the child if she is attached to it. She relies by asking if it meant anything to him and that they would make it. They could keep the child and still be happy.
“‘It’s ours.’
‘No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back.’
‘But they haven’t taken it away.’”
This quote also gives it away that they are talking about getting an abortion. It is their child, but it seems as if he doesn’t want to recognize it as a person. It isn’t a human being that shares their DNA, it is just something that is there that needs to be gone because it is causing them problems. The girl, however, hints here at her desire to keep it. “‘But they haven’t taken it away.'” There is a sense of hope in that statement.
One more thing that i would like to touch on is the drinking. The drinking is a sort of motif through the story. I feel as though the alcohol is a way that they avoid the conversation about the baby. Even the part where she asks him to “please please please please please please please” stop talking, the woman brings out some beer. Also, the girl says at one point “‘that’s all we do, isn’t it –look at things and try new drinks?” This makes it seem as if they avoid serious conversation a lot.
Despite the fact that the guy tells the girl that everything will fine, they drink apart from each other at the end. The guy drank at the bar while his girlfriend was at the table outside, perhaps representing a near future break up.
“He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.”
Literature! 