“Hills Like White Elephants”: A Young Couple at a Crossroads

 

“Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, shows us a story of a young couple at a crossroads of their lives, were they will have to make a life altering decision. While the word “abortion” is not openly spoken in the story, Hemingway provides many clues with his use of scenery and dialogue to highlight this unspoken issue. These clues show the reader that the couple has been deliberating this decision for days if not weeks. The story takes place at a train station with the couple waiting on a train for Madrid. The couple is at the point that a decision must be made. The story starts with the couple on one side of the train station in dialogue, a dialogue that is dominated by the man. We see this domination from the man in comparing the girl’s and the man’s body language towards each other. The girl is always looking away, either at the scenery or at the bar. The man is often looking at the girl, but with little care or love. By the middle of the story the girl is becoming annoyed with the man’s selfish pleading for the girl to have an abortion. In the end we see the girl finally having enough and showing that she is set on keeping the baby. The man finally recognizes this and gives into her decision. The scenery provides a great “either or” symbolism, illuminating the struggle between the couple and their decision to settle down, to start a family. The man clearly thinks of this girl as a plaything, like others before her, and does not want their carefree lifestyle to end. We see in the beginning that he has so far dominated the relationship; the girl who is still submissive to his will is struggling to define her own feelings.

The story begins with the couple sitting at a table. They order beer to start things off. Here Hemingway describes the scenery on the side of the station where the couple are seated. This side of the station is bare and dry, with a line of white hills in the background. The girl comments on the hills, referring to them “‘they look like white elephants’.” This comment and the scenery are showing the barren, infertile side of abortion. By aborting the baby, Jig would be giving up life for the continuance of a directionless relationship. The type of elephant represents how Jig feels about her pregnancy. She feels that it is great being pregnant with the potential for family, but it is driving a stake through the couples’ relationship, possibly destroying it if she goes through with giving birth. The man does not catch her meaning. He comes across as obtuse or indifferent to her quips. He makes the comment “‘I’ve never seen one,’” to which she retorts “‘no, you wouldn’t have’”. The man argues back, but the girl changes the subject to the painted words (Anis del Toro) on the beaded entrance of the bar. Another way of looking at the “White Elephant” comment is the color (white) represents sterility and that the shape represents a pregnant woman ballooning from the sexually desirable to the unwanted. Upon being served the drink, the girl comments on the licorice taste of the drink. The girl is expressing her bitterness about her situation. She has what many women long for, and here she is in an improper relationship discussing the potential to abort the pregnancy. The licorice taste provides symbolism of the bitterness covering the previous sweetness. In the beginning, the couple attempts to have a civil conversation and have another drink, which the man brings up the discussion of the operation in the middle of story.

In the middle of the story, the man brings up the operation. By the reaction, the girl is conveying annoyance at this subject being brought back up again via sarcastic silence. The dialogue implies this is not the first time they have discussed it. It is as if it is a well-worn path that is getting stale. The man becomes repetitive in asserting that the operation is not a big deal. He has been through it before, implying that he has gotten other girls pregnant and persuaded them to abort their babies. Jig is reacting negatively, but still has not formed a decision on what she wants. She is torn between wanting to still be with her lover and follow his lead, but she knows that the pregnancy itself has changed the relationship forever. Regardless if she keeps the baby or aborts it, the relationship for her will not be the same. The man clearly is feeling like this is a straightforward decision. He is saying, “let’s get this done and get back to having fun.” His language denotes an aspect of being controlling. But the girl is starting to assert herself and this has the man worried. He is trying to convince her that he cares about her, while denying her feelings. He is using phrases like “‘if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple’”. He uses the “it’s perfectly simple” bit several times in an attempt to reassure her. Jig continues to struggle, even turning the tables on the man by making him feel guilty. She states, “‘Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me’”. By all of the sudden agreeing with him and stating because she does not care about herself, she is throwing the man’s selfish nature in his face. This forces the man to reassure her with an empty gesture of how he cares about her, but she throws it in his face again, that she does not care about herself, but will do it so their relationship will go back to the way he wants it. The man now starts his retreat with “‘I don’t want you to do it if you feel that way’”. The man feels guilty knowing the only reason she will go through with the operation is to satisfy his selfishness, because he truly does not care for her. As the story transitions from the middle to the ending, we see the girl starting to form her feelings and resist the man’s overtures.

At the end of the story, the man realizes this time around that this girl will not be persuaded by his arguments to get the abortion, like the other girls. Jig has finally made a decision and is starting to assert herself in this relationship. The American realizes this and backs down from his argument for the abortion. At the beginning of the story, Jig has not made a decision on her own on whether to obtain the abortion or not. She shows several times how she is struggling against making her own decision and following her lover’s lead. Up to this point the reader is made to believe that Jig has followed the American’s lead, and that this is the first time she has shown her own feelings. The American at first asserts his authority as he has always done in the relationship, but Jig’s sudden forcefulness on the issue has him backing down. The man goes from confident to desperate and finally caving in. Readers will find the definitive evidence of the American finally giving in and deciding to settle down with Jig in the following.

He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.

“But I don’t want you to,” he said, “I don’t care anything about it.”

“I’ll scream,” the girl said.

The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads. “The train comes in five minutes,” she said.

“What did she say?” asked the girl.

“That the train is coming in five minutes.”

The girl smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her.

“I’d better take the bags over to the other side of the station,” the man said. She smiled at him.

The line “‘but I don’t want you to,’ he said, ‘I don’t care anything about it.’” after his reflection of their travel bags against the wall, shows that he is looking one last time at the symbolism of the carefree life he has lived thus far. As the man passes through the bar, he stops for a drink of Anis and makes an observation of the people sitting at the bar. The situation of him becoming a husband and father is finally dawning on him. This frightens him, but he is comforted by the other patrons in the bar as they are waiting for the same train. “Although he still “could not see the train”, that is, cannot visualize the future that going in the girl’s direction will bring, he uneasily accepts his fate”. Another point to highlight in the last sentence, she smiled at him, was the first time she looked at the man in the story. The man’s acquiescence is the first time in the story he has pleased her.

Hemingway has brilliantly crafted the combination of scenery and dialogue to intertwine this story of the complexity of our human nature, the difficulty in how two people are working through the ups and downs of a relationship. The American man has so far lived in a manner that he has successfully avoided tough obstacles in his life and prior relationships. The girl, Jig, is forcing him to finally look at possibilities other than roaming around and using women for his pleasure. The man’s dialogue shows that he has not thought of the possibility of being a husband or father, but by the end when he walks through the bar to return to the girl, he has finally realized that it is now his future. This is not some “the couple rides off into the happy sunset” cliché, but just more evidence of the continued work that relationships require. Whether this couple will stay together into the future will be dependent on the continued evolving of the girl’s maturity, and for the man to finally find humility and own up to his responsibilities as a man.