Meaning of Hills Like White Elephants Essay

Hills Like White Elephants

Ernest Hemingway

I have read a story called Hills like white elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway.

The story takes place in Ebro in Spain at a train station. A couple is waiting for the train, and while they wait, they decide to have drinks like they always do. They are having a conversation about what they should drink and suddenly the woman says that the hills look like white elephants. Then the conversation turned to be about the woman, and the baby. The man wanted her to have an abortion, but she did not want to, she keeps talking about the hills, and the man about the abortion. In the end the woman says to the man that she will have the abortion if he want her too, she wants to end the discussion.

There are two main characters in the short story, The American, who is the man, and the woman, Jig. The man is young I think, it is not mentioned in the story, but I guess, because if he was old, he would not want to have the abortion so much, now he seems that he wants to have fun and be with Jig alone, he do not want to be a parent with all the things that come with a baby, like responsible. He likes for example to drink a lot.

I see the woman like a typical female, she do not want to have the abortion in the start, because she is feeling like a mother, she wants her baby. But afterwards she cannot handle to discuss with the man, thats why she just give after and say okay to have the abortion. Like she says, I dont care about me (page 417, line 16). She gives up.

It is typical Hemingway style to show the man like a macho that should have the last word in the conversation. This man keeps telling Jig that she can decide, but indirect we can understand from the story that it should be like that.

The landscape is described on the first page of the story, and Jig mentions the hills many times. Like I understood it while I was reading, she is comparing the hills to an unborn baby. And specially her baby, because the white elephant is something nobody wants. And in this situation, the man does not want the baby, and she is not sure about her opinion. And she keeps repeating the same sentence about the hills, and their color.

Another meaning with the story could be that the man is afraid that the child is not his own. I think that they are white, both of them, and the man is afraid that the baby could be a negro, thats why he want her to get an abortion. I think that because she says the hills looks like white elephants, and as I mentioned earlier, the hills can describe the unborn baby, she is trying to tell him that the baby is white (as the hills) so she is trying to make him understand the baby is his own, and not another mans. And when she says that she do not care about herself, she means that if he do not trust her, she will not care about herself, because then she does not mean anything to him.

And later when he says to her that they can have the whole world, and she says no it is not their anymore (page 417-418, line 28-4) that means that she had make a decision, she will have the abortion, and she keeps saying its not ours, that means she is leaving him because he did not trust her in the first place.

The theme in the story is typical Hemingway, the relation between the man and the woman, and the discussions in their relationship. He is very manchuvinistic, he always put the male in the front position, and always gives the man right in what he says and does. It is also seen in this story in the conversation between the two characters.

The author of the story is Hemingway himself, he cannot see what the characters are thinking, but he can listen to them and see them.