Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

¶ … post: Hills Like White Elephants

Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" revolves around the dialogue of a young woman and a man, obviously lovers, who are discussing the woman's pending abortion. The woman does not want to have an abortion; the man wants her to do so. She sees his not-so-subtle lack of enthusiasm about her pregnancy as an example of how he does not care about her. Although he claims to have feelings for the girl, the man clearly wants to be free and unfettered and feels a baby will tie him down.

A white elephant is a term often applied to something that is false. The girl sees the hills in the distance and says they are like white elephants, but her simile becomes confused as she says it is if they have 'skins' like real elephants. To the girl, her unborn child is real; to the man it is false and not a living thing. To the girl, the relationship was real, but now from the man's behavior it is very clear that it is false as well. However, both of them seem unwilling or unable to end their tryst, which is why they never explicitly state that they are talking about an abortion. To be too overt in their language would be too painful for both of them, although for different reasons.

The male-female relationships in the story are overtly sexual and do not revolve around marriage or intimate understandings. They are conducted purely on a surface level in terms of plot: the man and the girl engage in dialogue, rather than soul-searching. They exist primarily as 'words on the page' rather than as descriptive realities. Also, their final fate is unresolved. One possible scenario is as follows:

The girl and the man stood on the train platform.

"I never liked this dress," she said, smoothing out the wrinkles.

"You always used to wear it when we went dancing."

"You mean, when we went drinking."

"Same difference."

"I'm leaving."

"What?"

"I expect you to pay for it. Then I'm leaving."

"What will you do? Where will you go? I thought we had it all straightened out between us. You said you wanted it."

"Wanted what?"

"The operation."

"You don't know what I want. I want to go back to America. Alone. We are through. You pay for it, then I am leaving."