Hills Like White Elephants

The operation Jig is confronting is abortion. The bartender refers to it as “not really an operation at all,” but this doesn’t seem to be the case because it seems to be emotionally risky. The girl, relating the white hills to “white elephant skin,” which is unique, more or less implies a desire to want to keep the child. It is unclear to me as to whether or not she wants to keep the child out of love for him/her, but it was my inclination, while reading, to assume that she wants the man to ask her to keep the child as a demonstration that he still loves her. The man shies away from having the child because he seems to want to maintain his youthful lifestyle of back-packing around the world (hence, the baggage with all the labels in the corner). So there is an obvious emotional conflict - the girl will have the abortion to please the man because she thinks it will make him happy, and stay with her, but, as the narrator implies, that is the only reason. She also doesn’t seem to be as worried about the physical complications as the man does (the man continues to say it is perfectly simple). Therefore, another conflict resides within her concern about the emotional risks, versus his concern about the physical risks. 

The importance of the setting to the plot of the story is crucial. They are at a train station in Spain, surrounded by fields of grain, with a backdrop of sunlit mountains. Being in the middle of no where symbolizes the open-endedness of the story. Hemingway leaves the reader to use his/her imagination as to what happens in regard to the couple’s decision. Also, the train tracks running through the middle of the station in opposite directions is important because it symbolizes the conflict that the couple is experiencing - there are two directions in which the couple can go, to have the child, or not. Lastly, Hemingway mentions that it is very hot outside. I think this is important because the heat can be both physically and emotionally taxing, adding weight to the conflict of whether or not the girl should have an abortion. Most obvious, though, are the hills in the distance. They remind the girl of her pregnancy, and they seem to represent, metaphorically, the amount of love the man has for her (she wonders if having the abortion will result in a resurgence of love for her when she asks, “.. if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?” ((663)) ).