Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

In Hemingway's story there are a number of contrasts between the two people. First of all, there are the obvious contrasts -- he's a man, she's a woman. He speaks Spanish, she doesn't. (When the woman tells them, "The train comes in five minutes," Jig's response is "What did she say?")

But the larger contrasts deal with the attitudes of the American and Jig. The American tries to convince Jig that "the operation" is no big deal. ("It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig," the man said. "It's not really an operation at all.") She seems unconvinced and doesn't really want to go through with it, although much of her concern appears to have to do more with how the man will act toward her "afterward" than how she feels about the operation itself.

These two people have a real communication problem. The girl keeps looking away, at the table leg or at the hills. She doesn't want to talk about why they are taking the trip. The man, on the other hand, does little else but go on and on about the operation -- although he tries to make it sound as if she doesn't have to go through with it if she doesn't want to -- without really listening to how she feels about it.

The beaded curtain seems to be a metaphor for this relationship. It does a poor job of covering anything (much like the man's feelings), and because it's made of beads, the curtain divides into pieces. Their relationship is divided, and in fact, the girl takes "hold of two of the strings of beads" just before they get on the train, as if she recognizes how fragmented their relationship is. The railroad track, too, symbolizes their relationship -- the two rails of the train track that don't ever touch, just as these people don't. They seem to come to agreement at the end of the story but it's just how they play with each other's heads. Neither of them is sincere, although they alternate in who has the upper hand.