Ernest Hemingway’s piece titled Hills Like White Elephants is about a couple deciding about their choices.
This piece was made in 1927 when abortion is taboo in Spain, so the author carefully hid its message by
presenting it with as little detail as possible for the readers but with enough detail to not misinterpret it. In a
realistic view, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway illustrates the action of a man and woman about
their unwanted pregnancy.
Hills like white elephants start with a couple who are traveling from Barcelona to Madrid. On their trip,
they stopped at Ebro station. The train for Barcelona would arrive in forty minutes, so they decided to get a drink
from a nearby bar. The bar has a curtain made of strings with bamboo beads. They ordered two beers. The girl
was looking outside the window and told him that the hills under the sun look like white elephants. The man
replied that he hasn’t seen one before. She agrees that he hasn’t seen one, but the man replies and tells her that
he might have seen one and that because she agreed that he hasn’t seen one, doesn’t prove anything. The girl
looked at the beads and noticed that there’s something painted on it. It says “Anis del Toro.” which is a drink.
Then she wonders if they can drink it. The man calls the woman to order a drink. The woman asks if they want
it with water. The girl asks the woman if it’s good with water, and the woman responds that it’s all right. So they
order it with water. They got the drink and the girl tells the man that it tastes like licorice. The man responds
saying that it should be the way with everything. The girl agrees and adds that everything tastes like licorice.
Especially the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe. Cut it out, says the man. The girl tells him that he
started it. She says that she was having a fine time. “Well let’s try and have a fine time.” says the man. So the
girl went back to looking at the hills and telling him that it looks like white elephants. Wasn’t that bright, she said.
The man agrees, “That was bright”. They continue to appreciate the view and their drinks. Then the man told her
that it’s a simple operation. The girl looked at the ground. The man continues “it’s just to let the air in.” The girl
did not say anything. “I’ll go with you and stay with you all the time,” he said. The girl asks what they will do
afterward. The man responds saying that they’ll be fine, just like before. “What makes you think so,” says the
girl. The man says that “it” is the only thing that bothers them, and it’s the only thing that made them unhappy.
The girl asks if they will be happy and the man responds that he knows they will be happy because he has seen
a lot of others who have done “it”. The girl agrees. But the man tells her that it’s okay to not do it if she doesn’t
want to, but says that he thinks that it’s the best thing to do. The girl asks him if he will be happy and things will
be like they were and that he’ll love her if she does it. The man responds by saying that she loves her now. The
conversation went on with the man convincing her that she should do it and telling her that it’s fine if she doesn’t
want to do it. She tells the man that they could have everything, they could do everything but the man disagrees
with her. They sat down at the table again. The girl asks him if it doesn’t mean anything to him, that they could
get along. He responds that it does matter to him but he doesn’t want anyone else. The woman brings them
another set of drinks and tells them that the train will arrive in five minutes. So the man proceeds to carry their
bags for the train. He finds out that there are others waiting too in the bar so returns to the girl. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him. He asks if she feels better. “I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.
I feel fine.”
The beer that they drank also has a vital role in the story. The drinking of beer and how they acted towards
the act of drinking it serves as the first clue that there is something unusual with the characters. When a girl said
that hills look like elephants (page 1), from this point she has an idea about her pregnancy, she’s aware of
the idiomatic meaning of this phrase and her reality. From then, she already knew this fact, but she still continued
to try and drink that beer named Anis del Toro, paired with water (1). She even described the taste of a drink,
“Everything tastes like liquorice”. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.” (1) but her
man was not amused when she said this, so he replied, “oh cut it out”. They both know that there is a risk for
pregnant women to drink this kind of alcohol, so the man commented like that. This was supported by the many
studies for the past years. Among experiments were conducted one which was by Valentin Magnan, a French
psychiatrist found after he studied 250 cases of alcoholism, and claimed that those who drank absinthe were
worse off than those drinking ordinary alcohol, having experienced rapid-onset hallucinations. This is a kind of
alcohol, and Anis del Toro and absinthe, was banned in the United States and western countries in 1915 but this
drink was popular in Spain during 1927 as when this was written. In this short story, this alcohol symbolizes the
fun it gives to the drinker and the intention of the couple that they want to get rid of unwanted pregnancy.
The text is realistic in the sense that they make this kind of decision because they made an unexpected
result, and this happens in real life. In fact, abortion is illegal and taboo in Spain from the time this was written
and the writer was successful in portraying it realistically. If a couple is discussing this topic, they won’t say
the word ‘abortion’ in public places and use a different word, which in this case, it was “operation”. Some readers
might not think this operation means abortion the first time they read this, but it’s obvious from the context of a
man and woman who are in a relationship. Because this man and woman in the story are a couple that is going
to decide whether they continue their intention or not. They are solving their problem through operation, and that
problem was the outcome of their love and the nature of being in a relationship. In terms of characteristics of
man and woman in real life, it was also presented in a text. The way of talking of a man is direct to the point, he
thinks wisely and considers their lives after the operation was done, and he said that they can’t have everything
that woman wants, he is a rational thinker than the woman. The characteristic of a woman is emotional, from the
point of she will do everything for her man, and she doesn’t care about her life. She will continue this operation
for the sake of her man’s happiness and believe that it will happen, so she said they can have this everything
whatever she sees. In this case, the author wrote about what is happening in real life. Actually, more studies
were conducted and have objective results that the nature of men is nobler in reason but women are
semantically associated with emotion and sympathy. These subtle details tell us of the situation that the couple
is in, it reveals to us their intentions, and explains the way they act based on their dialogue.
The characters in the story portray realism in terms of how some couples live in real life, that the man is
in control of everything and the woman, most of the time is just following him. From the dialogue itself, the man has no name but the woman was called by her name. In reality, if people are in a relationship they may call
their partner by their first name or give a nickname, and that’s what portrays the man and the woman named Jig.
As they are talking, the writer didn’t give a name for a man, it’s just a casual talking and arguing without
mentioning his name. But when the man called her ‘Jig’, it is because he started the discussion about the
operation and that is the sign of respect and love, but he sounds authoritative. It seems that he is older than the
woman, so he took advantage to start the conversation about the operation. “It’s really an awfully simple
operation, Jig”, he started on this and described how simple the operation will be. In their relationship, it seems
that the man is the one who decides for their lives and the woman will obey him for their happiness when she
said, “so have I and afterward they were all so happy.” She even concluded that their lives will be back again
from when it started just like there was nothing that happened. She is very dependent on that man like he is in
control of her life. Not only that, but she can’t decide for herself when she says “then I’ll do it because I don’t
care about me.” This was written in 1927, and it shows that women are almost relying on their partners even
in decision-making. This is realistic because even from then until today, this is happening. According to Neave
(2006), women are dependent on men naturally. He also found evidence that demonstrated the differences
between gender, that men are hunter-gatherers in nature and women are child-bearers that cause them to be
more emotional, and weaker beings than men. The author felt that these details were important because it shows
the reality of relationships during his time which is also beneficial for the story because it creates tension between
the characters by preventing each of them to decide without thinking of the other person.
In the story, Hills like White Elephants, the author makes use of minimal details to portray how couples
deal with unwanted pregnancy back in their time. Although the details are minimal, there is enough of it to feel
the atmosphere of the story which makes the text more impressive and realistic. The events and their dialogue
are realistic, it was even supported by studies. This story also portrays the real-life couple if they are in the midst
of this situation but this does not mean readers will imitate what the characters did. This is only the portrayal of
real-life problems and how do they deal with them.
References:
- The Hemingways: An American Tragedy. (n.d.). VQR Online. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://www.vqronline.org/essay/hemingways-american-tragedy
- Talk:Absinthe/Archive 4. (n.d.). Wikiwand. Retrieved November 21, 2020, from https://wikiwand.com/en/Talk:Absinthe/Archive_
