thesis for hills like white elephants

A Summary and Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Hills Like White Elephants’ (1927) is one of Ernest Hemingway’s best-known and most critically acclaimed short stories. In just five pages, Hemingway uses his trademark style – plain dialogue and description offered in short, clipped sentences – to expose an unspoken subject that a man and a young woman are discussing.

You can read ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of the story.

Plot summary

A man (an American expatriate) and a young girl (or ‘girl’) are drinking in the bar of a railway station in Spain, while waiting for their train. As it’s hot, they order some beers to drink, and then try an aniseed drink. The girl looks at the line of hills in the valley of the Ebro and remarks that they look like white elephants.

Her male companion, with whom we deduce she is in some sort of relationship, says he has never seen a white elephant and then gets defensive and annoyed when she remarks that he wouldn’t have, presumably because they’re so rare.

Their small talk then takes in the curtains of the bar, but gradually their conversation turns to an ‘operation’ (of sorts) which the man is trying to persuade the girl to undertake.

This procedure, which is referred to as ‘it’ throughout the story, is almost certainly an abortion, the girl having fallen pregnant by the man. However, it becomes clear that he wishes her to get rid of the baby, although she remains undecided. Eventually, growing tired of the man’s attempts to sway her, she demands that he stop talking.

They hear that their train is arriving, but when the man goes outside there is no sign of it. When he goes back inside and asks the girl how she is feeling, she replies curtly that she’s ‘fine’.

The title of Hemingway’s story, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, is fitting for a number of reasons. First and perhaps most obviously, the title of the story denotes not the main and most pressing topic of the two main characters’ conversation – the unspoken ‘it’, the girl’s ‘operation’, which the man is trying to encourage her to have – but one aspect of their small talk as they skirt around that topic.

The girl’s comment about the Spanish hills looking like white elephants is mere filler, an example of ‘treading water’ as she and her male companion drink enough alcohol to make broaching the dread topic of their conversation – without actually directly mentioning it – palatable or even possible.

‘White elephants’ itself has two potential meanings here. There is a rare albino elephant known as the white elephant, whose presence at the royal court, in countries like Burma and Thailand, was considered a sign that the monarch reigned justly, and that the kingdom would be blessed with peace and prosperity.

But the second meaning is implied in Hemingway’s story. A ‘white elephant’ is a Western cultural term describing a possession which its owner cannot dispose of. The maintenance cost of such a possession is out of proportion to its usefulness or desirability.

Given the (implied) topic of the man and girl’s conversation – the girl’s reluctant decision to abort the baby she has conceived by the man – this meaning of ‘white elephant’ comes into view with a tragic force. The (unwanted) baby the girl has conceived with the man is like the proverbial white elephant, something that would cost a great deal for her to keep and maintain.

But by the same token, she finds it hard to ‘get rid of’ her white elephant, presumably because of the finality of such an act, though it is also implied that she worries over the safety of the procedure. (We should remember that medical procedures in 1927 were often not as relatively clean or as advanced as they now are.)

So the very title of Hemingway’s short story, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, subtly and obliquely references the very thing which the two of them cannot bring themselves to mention or name openly: the title, then, both reveals and conceals the real subject of the story.

‘Hills Like White Elephants’ contains many of the most representative elements of Hemingway’s fiction: the spare style, the plain and direct dialogue, and the Spanish landscape which he often wrote about. And yet all three of these things can be said to work against, or be in tension with, the story’s subject-matter.

The spare style exposes the uncomfortable nature of the couple’s relationship (despite his repeated exhortations that she shouldn’t go through with ‘it’ unless she wants to, he is clearly trying to persuade her to have the abortion for his sake); the directness of the dialogue masks the failure of the two characters to have a frank conversation about ‘it’; and the Spanish landscape is not mere backdrop but a detail that is brought into the story only because the girl is finding it hard to address the momentous subject she knows she must eventually face.

And that leads us to wonder whether there might not be another meaning playing around that title, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’: the so-called ‘elephant in the room’, the idiom (prominent in the United States by the early twentieth century) denoting a conspicuous and important issue which nobody wants to discuss.

One also wonders whether, somewhere in his prodigious mind, Hemingway was recalling Mark Twain’s 1882 detective story, ‘ The Stolen White Elephant ’, in which the elephant turns out to have been in the original spot all along. Like the proverbial elephant in the room, Hemingway’s ‘hills like white elephants’ are there, prominent and immovable, and even getting on a train is not going to allow one to escape their true meaning.

Because so much of the characters’ dialogue works by subtext and through small talk, we are encouraged to deduce the nature of their relationship through observing how they interact, even more than by paying attention to what they talk about.

The man’s response to the girl’s dismissive comment that he wouldn’t have ever seen an actual white elephant is a case in point, since it suggests a controlling aspect to his personality, whereby an offhand and largely meaningless remark is taken up by him and responded to in a manner that is as defensive as it is petty.

Similarly, it is worth pointing out that the girl goes back on her initial statement that the hills resemble white elephants, saying shortly after this that the hills don’t actually look that much like white elephants after all, and only remind her of their colour. (This is interesting because many so-called white elephants are ‘white’ only in name: many of them are actually grey or pinkish in colour.)

This similarly reflects her vacillation over ‘it’, the termination of her pregnancy which she is evidently reluctant to undertake. As so often in a Hemingway story, how he reveals things through characters’ dialogue is as significant – and perhaps in this case even more so – than what is (not) being said.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Type your email…

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants

Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 25, 2021

The frequently anthologized Hills Like White Elephants  first printed in transition magazine in 1927 is often read and taught as a perfect illustration of Ernest Hemingway’s minimalist, self-proclaimed “iceberg” style of writing: In much of Hemingway’s fiction what is said in the story often is less important than what has not been said. Like the iceberg—only one-eighth of which is visible above the surface—Hemingway’s fiction is much richer than its spare language suggests. Hemingway has great faith in his readers and leaves them to discern what is truly happening from the scant facts he presents on the surface of his story. On a superficial level, Hills is merely about a man, a woman, and an “awfully simple operation” (275). What the narrator never actually tells the reader, however, is that “awfully simple operation” is an abortion, a taboo subject in 1925. Underneath the surface of this story are THEMEs and motifs that are characteristic of many of Hemingway’s other works as well. As do many of those works, “Hills” tells the story of an American abroad and depicts the strained relationships between men and women that clearly intrigued the author. As with many of the relationships Hemingway portrays, this man and woman apparently have nothing in common but sex and the heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Ernest Hemingway/Goodreads

Hills  is also a story of avoidance. Instead of having a significant, rational conversation about the issue at hand, the “girl,” Jig, says only that the hills of Spain look like white elephants. “Wasn’t that clever?” she asks the unnamed man (274). This rather inconsiderate male companion agrees, but he actually wants to talk about the procedure. Jig would rather not discuss it. When he pressures her, she replies, “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.” Jig is the typical Hemingway female, selfless and sacrificial. She is prepared to have the abortion, but the reader is left with the distinct impression that any previous magic between the couple is gone. “It isn’t ours anymore,” Jig tells the American (276). The unfortunate accident of pregnancy has ruined the relationship; it will never be the same. Hemingway explores many of the same themes in his important war novel A Farewell to Arms and in The Sun Also Rises.

Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s Novels

BIBLIOGRAPHY Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” 1927. Reprinted in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigía Edition. New York: Scribner, 1987. Johnston, Kenneth. “ ‘Hills Like White Elephants’: Lean, Vintage Hemingway.” Studies in American Fiction (1982). Renner, Stanley. “Moving to the Girl’s Side of Hills.” The Hemingway Review (1995).

Share this:

Categories: Literature , Short Story

Tags: American Literature , Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , appreciation of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , criticism of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , Ernest Hemingway , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants criticism , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants essays , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants guide , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants notes , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants plot , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants story , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants structure , Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants summary , essays of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , guide of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , Hills Like White Elephants , Literary Criticism , plot of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , structure of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , summary of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants , themes of Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants

Related Articles

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Hills Like White Elephants — Exploring Symbolism in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”

Exploring Symbolism in Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants"

• Categories: Hills Like White Elephants

About this sample

Words: 630 |

Published: Jun 13, 2024

Words: 630 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Introduction

Body paragraph.

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof. Kifaru

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1803 words

3 pages / 1264 words

2.5 pages / 1035 words

2.5 pages / 1208 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Hills Like White Elephants

Introduction In the short story “Hills like White Elephants,” there is a constant power struggle between the two characters. At first glance, the woman comes off as timid and resigned to the fact that she is going to do [...]

Since its publication in 1927, Ernest Hemingway’s seemingly simple short story “Hills Like White Elephants” has readers arguing over the ever-present issue of a woman’s rights. At first glance, “Hills Like White Elephants” [...]

In literature, the presence of alcohol can play a fundamental role in guiding the themes and perspectives within a given narrative. The characters in the story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, for instance, were [...]

"Hills Like White Elephants," is a short story, written by author Ernest Hemingway. It is a story about a man and a woman waiting at a train station talking about an issue that they never name. I believe this issue is abortion. [...]

“For he alone knew, what no other initiate knew, how easy it was to fast. It was the easiest thing in the world.” Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” What does it mean to willfully fast, or to deny hunger, the most fundamental of [...]

Like Christmas morning itself - when each present represents a discrete mystery, separate from the last - the Christmas Carol is divided into a set of episodes. The book's chapters are episodic, with the duration of each spirit [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Analysis of “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway Essay

Introduction, the dialogue, the environment.

Subtext and metaphors play an enormous role in Hemingway’s works. A story written in 1927 called Hills Like White Elephants is an example of such a work. So, two characters are waiting for a train, a couple, they are talking, she orders a drink, it seems like nothing special. The style is very precise, telegraphic, and dry, and the author avoids even such remarks as “he/she said”, which many English authors are very fond of. But behind these terse dialogues – is the whole story of the relationship.

The first thing worth noting is the dialogue in the story. The point is that the writer, in fact, does not insert his own comments or vision of the situation. The entire work is built through a dialogue between two people, whose remarks describe the world around them, and their thoughts and what is happening in general. It is necessary to consider one of the most striking examples of revealing the world through dialogue:

• It’s a minor operation, Jig, – the man said. – It’s not even an operation.
• And if I do it, won’t you be nervous? – No, because it’s nothing.
• Well, then I will. I don’t care what happens to me (Hemingway, 2).

Not a single sentence says anything about the baby or the abortion. But the reader understands that the situation is this – the characters are expecting a child, the young man does not want one, their relationship is falling apart, and he pushes her to take the tragic step.

Geography plays an important role in literature. The geography in this short story shows the situation’s positive side but also the downfall and negativity. The resolution contributes to the conflict and tension that lies between the couple, showing the literal and figurative aspects of the situation. The couple sits facing the side of the valley with no trees, and there is a brown area in the distance, which is in great need of water. On the opposite side of the valley, along the banks of the Ebro, there are “fields of grain and trees” (Hemingway 1). But as she watches this happen, “the shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain,” foreshadowing the death of her unborn child (Hemingway 1). Another thing to keep in mind is the cultural aspect of the setting. Hemingway placed his story in Spanish territory. Most Spanish-speaking countries are mostly Catholic, which means they don’t agree with abortion. “However, the woman does not understand Spanish, which helps to reveal her essential helplessness and dependence. She is a stranger in a foreign country where her companion is her only interpreter and guide” (Hemingway 2). Their luggage reveals that they are not from the entire area, and their luggage also hints that they have two options once they leave the station. They can go to Madrid and become a family, or they can go to the same place and have an abortion.

Hemingway uses symbolism in his works to hide the obvious by making the reader think. There are many examples of symbolism in this work. For example, the suitcases, the train, and the character’s name. The main symbolism is the hills, around which the story revolves and through which the climax occurs. This is the most important symbol, revealing everything, both the meaning of the character’s journey and their different attitudes toward what is to come. In addition, it is the white elephants that show the conflict. Thus, Hemingway does not need to tell the story of what happened because the symbolism does that on its own.

Ernest Hemingway’s stories are characterized by their strangeness and expressiveness, related to the artistic techniques used by the author. In the story Hills Like White Elephants , it becomes apparent that dialogue and symbolism are central to the writer’s work. In addition, Hemingway hardly ever comments on what is happening; readers either understand it themselves or are told by the symbols. This effect is achieved through the charismatic setting and symbols, which makes the writer’s work unique.

Hemingway, Ernest. Hills Like White Elephants. Short Story . HarperPerennial Classics, 2013.

• Impending Environmental Disaster in Van Camp's "Lying in Bed Together"
• Disintegration of Family and Societal Relations in Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”
• Ernest Hemingway's Creative Process
• Hemingway’s "Hills Like White Elephants" and Pound’s "In a Station of the Metro"
• Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway and War Experiences
• Dual Structure of “The Bone Cage” Novel by Angie Abdou
• Person vs. Society Conflict in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
• The Short Story "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Andersen
• Protagonist in "The Dreamer" by Junot Díaz
• Pages 53-59 of Mrs. Sheridan’s Masterstroke by Atkinson
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, November 13). Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-hills-like-white-elephants-by-ernest-hemingway/

"Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway." IvyPanda , 13 Nov. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-hills-like-white-elephants-by-ernest-hemingway/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway'. 13 November.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway." November 13, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-hills-like-white-elephants-by-ernest-hemingway/.

1. IvyPanda . "Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway." November 13, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-hills-like-white-elephants-by-ernest-hemingway/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway." November 13, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-hills-like-white-elephants-by-ernest-hemingway/.

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment