An Analysis of Ernest Hemmingway's Hills Like White Elephants

Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” tells the tale of a man and a woman, who at first might seem to be having a normal and rather dull conversation at a train station, but it is only when you look closer into what is actually being said by the characters and find the small clues that Hemingway cleverly knit into the story, that you realize how heavy the conversation actually is. Unlike many authors, Hemingway leaves it to the reader to delve deeper into the story and decipher the situation for themselves, and a seemingly simple story can become something so much more. The woman in the story is contemplating whether to stick to the life she knows or begin a brand new chapter in her life that could change her relationship with the man forever. Sometimes one’s true intentions are not always clear.

The story begins at a bar in a train station in Spain. A man and a woman order some drinks and begin to have a conversation. Though there are no descriptions or narrations as to what the conversation is actually about, through subtle hints in the story we can infer that the conversation being discussed is about an abortion, whether to go through with one or not. The first major hint is in the title of the story itself. A white elephant is defined as a possession that is useless or troublesome, something that is expensive to maintain and or difficult to dispose of. One can definitely assume that the term “white elephant” in the title serves as an analogy to the baby that is being carried by the woman. Hemingway drops a second hint when the conversion take a sudden turn, going from the couple making small talk of beer, to the man bringing up what seemed to be the random subject of an operation, “It’s an awfully simple operation, J...

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...flict is either resolved in a way that is clearly positive for the protagonist, or clearly negative. In this case, you have to consider the possibility that Jig’s feelings might not have been correct. Maybe the man is right, and their lives will return to the same way they were. She may have forgotten about her feelings and went back to enjoying her life as she had heard others had after getting abortions. Or she may have felt empty and unfulfilled for the rest of her life. The real “ending” is in question.

Abortion in this day in age is not what it may have been in the 20’s. Today, there is intense debate on whether it is morally right or wrong and is even a major political topic. Hemingway may have used one of the characters to express his true thoughts on the issue of abortion. It is unclear what his true beliefs on the subject of abortion really where, but even