Theme and narrative in Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants"
Kathleen Colligan Aron Reyes
English 1B February 5, 2003
Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” contains love, anger, and frustration.
In “Hills Like White Elephants” we have two main characters a woman named Jig, and an unnamed American man. The two are apparently lovers. While we don’t know how long they have been romantically involved, we do know that Jig is pregnant, and that the man wants her to have an abortion. The story is set in Spain’s Ebro Valley at a train station. The train station is near a river looking on barren hills. Because the hills have no vegetation they appear to be white. Their round shape looks somewhat like a white elephant. As our characters sit outside a bar there is an obvious hostility in the air. Jig especially seems very frustrated. This is shown through her sarcastic remarks about drinking absinthe. As the conversation moves on the man speaks of “an awfully simple operation” The man asks the woman to have this operation. He says things like “It’s not really an operation at all”, and “It’s just to let the air in.” He tries to tell her “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. As the conversation progresses we see that Jig’s mood becomes more heated. She begins to question things like whether or not the man loves her, and will he still love her the same if she decides to go through with the operation. Next Jig becomes so frustrated that she asks the man to “please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking?” As we come to the end of the story Jig agrees however, the animosity continues between the two. In the end they do stop talking about it because the train that they were waiting for is coming. In the end of the story we leave with Jig telling the man that she will have the abortion, and that “There is nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”
