Topic > Symbolism and Setting Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway's short story “Hills Like White Elephants” is about a young American woman and man who argue about the issue of abortion and their difficult relationship . However, it is commonly misunderstood and leaves many readers confused as the word “abortion” is never mentioned anywhere. We were left with dialogue between the two characters with small portions explaining setting details to capture the main context of the story and derive our feelings about the characters. Although the four-page story takes place over a very short period of time, it hides a much bigger story underneath. “The hills across the Ebro Valley were long and white. On this side there was no shade or trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun..." The story opens with the description of a railway station located in the Spanish Ebro valley where the landscape is without shadows , barren and hot. In this landscape appear a young woman, called “Jig” and an American man, who are waiting for an express train. They enter, sit in a bar in the shadow of the station and start discussing what to drink. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayHemingway immediately emphasizes in the story's opening the harsh nature of the setting as the girl and the American man escape into the only accessible shadow of temporary reassurance through alcohol. The dialogue between the two characters, which begins with a discussion about what to drink, suggests how central alcohol has become to avoiding real communication between them. The descriptions of the landscape as barren and barren allude to the idea of ​​pregnancy and the emphasis on the harshness of the sun suggests an obvious tension between the couple which they try to avoid by remaining in the shadow of the building and not communicating. This shows that Hemingway's writing is poor in its language and does not reveal any real plot points; however, almost every detail in her writing actually shows the struggle between the minds of the two characters over whether or not to have an abortion. The white hills on the Ebro Hills are probably the first directly set theme that readers will notice as Hemingway refers to them in the title. “They look like white elephants,” the girl makes a seemingly innocent remark, to which the man replies that he may or may not have seen one. White elephants indicate a useless and burdensome possession, they are generally unwanted as they bring shame and trouble to their owners more than they are worth, and the fact that the girl so quickly sees white elephants in the most casual environments implies that she is thinking a lot about the upcoming abortion. A little later he added: “They are lovely hills… They don't really look like white elephants.” This may indicate that she is having second thoughts about the operation because her baby may not be the white elephant it once might have been. This change in perception towards the hill could instead be a denial of it. She may already feel guilty about the procedure, and once she begins to see the pervasive symbol on the hills, she chooses to use logic to see that, in reality, her unborn child does not resemble white elephants, thus winning her guilt over the issue. .Although the hills may be the first symbolic element of scenery that the reader notices, the train station is actually the first that the reader encounters in the story and only notices after rereading it. The train station is described in the first paragraph as “between two railway lines”, then later as a crossroads between Madrid and Barcelona. The meaning seems to be that, since i..