Hills like White Elephants

Hills like White Elephants

Ernest Hemingway's story, "Hills like White Elephants," is deceptively simple. It requires multiple readings to truly understand the meaning behind the two main characters, a man called "the American" and a girl called Jig, conversation. This story is unusually in that the man and the girl argue about an operation-abortion- that is never explicitly specified. The American is trying to convince his girlfriend, Jig, to have an abortion but Jig does not want to do it. This story's takes place in a train station and the train tracks are a symbol for which direction their lives will take from this significant crossroads in their relationship. On one side of the tracks, there are fields of grain, trees, and a river, which are symbolic of "the possibilities having the baby could bring this couple" (Tyler 76). The other side of the tracks is dry and vacant, which "indicates the barrenness of their life if they choose to go through with the abortion" (Tyler 76).

The theme of the story is portrayed in the title. The expression "white elephant" originally referred to a literal white elephant, which was sacred, given as a gift by the King of Siam (now Thailand), and gradually became to mean a gift that required great care and expense. Now, it refers to something unwanted that has little value. Both of these meanings describe the unborn baby because it requires great care and expense and is unwanted by the man.

The couple's conversation about getting an abortion is in public. This causes them to express their feelings in an unobtrusive way, so they resort to irony, sarcasm, and indirect language. This is shown in the girl response to the man's comment on the bitterness of the drink when she says " 'Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe" (8). This response is very significant in the story in the it "emphasizes not only that life's bitter taste, like the wormwood flavoring of absinthe, is caused by late and inadequate fulfillment of desire, but that the long, bitter aftertaste obscures the memory of its first sweetness" (Abdoo 240). Absinthe is also symbolic to the couple's destructive relationship. Initially, absinthe's captivating innocence leads to joy and excitement and is also an aphrodisiac. Eventually, its "treacherous poison overpowers its victims, bringing with it impotence, sterility, dullness of emotion, and, finally, abject despair; likewise, the couple's illicit affair and irresponsible lifestyle, which deceptively promise joy and happiness, are fraught with concealed danger from the very beginning" (Lanier 286). After the girl says this, the man knows that the bitter taste reminds her of the meaningless life they are living together. Absinthe is not only a symbol of the couple's relationship, but it also a religious symbol because its main ingredient is wormwood. There are references to wormwood in the bible as a symbol of "bitter sorrow, calamity, or cruel punishment" (Lanier 287). Another instance of their sarcastic, indirect language is when they are talking about what their relationship will be like afterwards if she has the abortion. Unlike the man, the girl does not believe that they could go on with their relationship like nothing happen, after she gets the abortion. The man tells her that he knows people who have had abortions and the girl sarcastically responds by saying, " 'And afterward they were all so happy' " (10). The girl knows that their relationship will never be the same no matter what she decides to do. A last example is when the girl becomes dissatisfied with