Luke Karam

Professor Whitley

English 100

1 October 2018

Hills Like White Elephants

            In “Hills Like White Elephants”, Ernest Hemingway is using personification and metaphors to paint us a picture of a troubled relationship between a couple who are trying to find a solution to a problem that can’t seem to agree on a solution. The American desperately wants Jig (his girlfriend to get an operation (presuming it is an abortion), Hemingway uses a bunch of subtle lines to really try to depict what is going on in this narrative and there is way more here than what you can read from at face value. When Jig describes the Hills as ‘White elephants’ she is really talking about the couples’ problem instead of just saying the hills look like white elephants.

This narrative is trying to tell the story of a couple who is facing a pregnancy, most of the narrative the American is trying to tell the female that he wants her to have this operation. From what I can gather this operation that the American wants the women to have is an abortion. She really doesn’t seem too keen on this operation, but after the American’s begging she agrees to it saying she doesn’t care about her body. I think that this means that she is letting the American speak for her instead of doing what she wants to do even if she is unhappy. Part of the reason she even agrees to it is because she is longing for the connection that she and the American had before they she became presumably pregnant. Something changed when in their relationship, and she just desperately wants to be loved by the American again, even willing to have an operation she clearly isn’t very fond of to restore their love once again.

Hemingway achieves this story of a broken relationship by comparing the girl’s unborn child to that of a white elephant. This can be seen in the beginning of the narrative when she states that the hills look like white elephants, but then after the Americans pitch of having an operation she says the hills no longer look like white elephants. This is supposed to also resemble something in their relationship, before they sat down and had drinks in this train station there was this huge white elephant in the room (the pregnancy) that was made the couple go through a turbulent time. So, after she says the hills no longer look like white elephants it means they got past this big problem in their relationship that was causing them so many issues and they can finally get back to how they were before. He also shows how they are going through issues by having them order multiple drinks in the beginning of the narrative before addressing the ‘Elephant’ in the room. Someone people try to hide their problems by consuming alcohol and think Hemingway tries to show that by the amount of alcohol the couple orders in the beginning showing that there is something that is really affecting these two people.  Once they begin drinking, they begin to open up to each other about the whole pregnancy situation that they are in. The alcohol is what Hemmingway is talking about here, it is a key part to this narrative.

He is using metaphors in this narrative comparing the hills to white elephants to try to get his message across to the readers. She says how the hills look like white elephants, this helps to show us that things aren’t always what they seem to be. Which is a major theme of this narrative story, we can see this with how the American and his girlfriend interact, they talk like it is ok but not everything is okay. So, I think Hemmingway’s usage of the metaphor really describes they why for this narrative, it describes two abstract things and with the girlfriends’ pregnancy that is talked about, the baby isn’t quite here yet, which is making reference to the white elephant. The white elephant is something that people don’t want and the women uses it because she knows the American doesn’t want this child.

I think that Hemingway presents his message this way because it is something that many people in the world actually struggle with. A lot of people will try to hide their problems

behind alcohol you can see it in the story, “That’s all we do isn’t it, try new drinks and look at things.” Also, he shows how couples can be thrown into a tough situation with pregnancy because one person may want a child and the other one doesn’t want them to keep it. He puts it in the way of a white elephant because of the expression “The elephant in the room”, and the “Elephant” here was the operation that the American really wants the girl to have. Hemingway also portrays it in this light because a lot of times people are willing to do whatever they have to make a relationship work that clearly isn’t going to work. The girl is willing to do whatever she has to do to keep the American happy and get their relationship back to the way it was before. She even loses her own self-respect in the narrative, she says “I don’t care about me.” I think he also puts the setting in Spain and only allows the American to speak for them is to show how much control he has over the girl in their relationship. It seems in the narrative she is trying to fix their doomed relationship and he is really putting all their issues on her not wanting to have this operation. This narrative has a lot of layers to it and can be interpreted in multiple different ways.