Hemingway's Hills like White Elephants: A Study in Complicated Relationships

Ernest Hemingway's short story, "Hills Like White Elephants," is a modern literary masterpiece. Set in a European train station in the early 20^th century, the story revolves around an American man and the girl he has with him, discreetly carrying on a conversation regarding the possibility of aborting their unexpected child. In keeping with the Hemingway literary style and tradition, the mood throughout is unsympathetic, where the characters carry themselves with confidence, if not pride, and are seemingly indifferent. They spend the entire story talking and drinking alcohol. This mood can lead to complications in explicating the true feelings (if any) that Hemingway may have wished to convey through these characters and their predicament, though I believe that the general idea of the story can be summed up in a single line, said by the man in the story about a third of the way in: "'It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig,' the man said" (Hemingway 76). This sums up the story because it's the first of many lines to come where the word 'simple' is used to describe their situation, when in reality the situation is anything but simple.

After using this ironic term to describe the operation that is the abortion he is trying to talk the girl into having, the man goes on to try and prove his point. He says, "'It's really not an operation at all...I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in'" (Hemingway 76). Yet the girl is not so sure, and as she remains silent the man continues his pathetic imploration: "'I'll go with you and I'll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it's all perfectly natural'" (Hemingway 76). So far this 'simple' operation seems a little more complicated than the man is letting on, and it's quickly becoming obvious he is concerned for more than just the girl's well being. If he were truly concerned for her health and what she may be going through, he would stop talking long enough to let her get a word in edge-wise. When he finally does let her speak, the following exchange takes place, furthering the proof of the complications the situation entails. The girl begins,

'Then what will we do afterward?'
'We'll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.'
'What makes you think so?'
'That's the only thing that bothers us. It's the only thing that's made us unhappy.'
The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads.
'And you think then we'll be all right and be happy?'
'I know we will. You don't have to be afraid. I've known lots of people that have done it.'
'So have I,' said the girl. 'And afterward they were all so happy' (Hemingway 76).

This exchange further exposes the fact that the man and the girl are very likely on different pages when it comes to the whole situation. It may just be a simple operation for the man, sure, but to the girl it's much more than that. To the girl this situation involves more than just an operation, it involves their being "all right" and "happy" as well. The girl's thoughts are illuminated even more in the last line, where she replies sarcastically to the man regarding his comment that he's "known lots of people that have done it." He means to comfort her, to alleviate some of her fears, but she knows better. She says, simply, "'So have I...and afterward they were all so happy.'" As stated before, the irony of the story is the constant use of the word 'simple' to describe the conflict, when in reality the conflict gets more complicated with nearly every successive line. In retaliation to the girl's sarcasm in the last quote, the man pulls back with an attitude of defense and a seemingly genuine empathy. He states, "'Well...if you don't want to you don't have to. I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to. But I know it's perfectly simple'" (Hemingway 76). There's that word 'simple' again, and he doesn't stop there. After a little more dialogue exchanged between the pair that points to anything but a simplicity in conversation, the man continues, after the girl asks "'If I do it you won't ever worry?'" He says, "'I won't worry about that because it's perfectly simple'" (Hemingway 77).

For whatever reason the man's entire argument is based around the idea he has that everything is just so simple, and that if the girl could only see that then everything would be OK. If she could only allow herself to admit the simplicity of the situation then there would be nothing to worry about - for him anyway.

The girl has begun to see through this campaign for simplicity, and starts to understand that this excessive bargaining in the name of keeping things 'simple' is in truth a desperate attempt on the part of the man to keep things less serious, less committal. She expresses this in the following dialogue:

'You've got to realize,' he said, 'that I don't want you to do it if you don't want to. I'm perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you.'
'Doesn't it mean anything to you? We could get along.'
'Of course it does. But I don't want anybody but you. I don't want any one else. And I know it's perfectly simple.'
'Yes, you know it's perfectly simple.'
'It's all right for you to say that, but I do know it.'
'Would you do something for me now?'
'I'd do anything for you.'
'Would you please please please please please please please please stop talking' (Hemingway 77-78)?

The girl understands at this point that the man is less concerned about her, or even about their relationship, than he is about himself. Despite his pronouncement that he is "perfectly willing to go through with it" (though only "if it means something" to her) and how he says "I don't want anybody but you," the man has already given himself away. He opened his mouth one too many times earlier on when he said, "'I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do...'" The girl cut him off and finished his sentence with her own thought: "'Nor that isn't good for me. I know'" (Hemingway 77). The man was so busy pushing his false concern for the girl based on his idea that it was all so simple - that with the girl it was just about whether she wanted to do it or not - that he failed to see there was more at stake for her than just the inconvenience factor. For the girl it was about much more than what she wanted to do, it was about what she should do. When she realized this, the girl refused to discuss the subject any more. When the man pushed the subject by saying (after she'd asked him not to talk anymore), "'I don't want you to. I don't care anything about it.'" She replied, simply, "'I'll scream'" (Hemingway 78).

The story ends leaving the characters no better of than they were when we first met them, complicated and complicating. It reminds me of the ending of another of Hemingway's short stories, "Under the Ridge," about a man filming a battle for a propaganda campaign to encourage the losing side of the Spanish Civil War. One of the main conflicts in the story is of a Frenchman who left a hopeless battle during the fight and was shot for it by his commanding officers, though they knew it was certain death when they'd sent in their troops beforehand. Hemingway writes,

"I understood how a man might suddenly, seeing clearly the stupidity of dying in an unsuccessful attack; or suddenly seeing it clearly, as you can see clearly and justly before you die; seeing its hopelessness, seeing its idiocy, seeing how it really was, simply get back and walk away from it as the Frenchman had done. He could walk out of it not from cowardice, but from simply seeing too clearly; knowing suddenly that he had to leave it; knowing there was no other thing to do" (The Fifth Column 147).

I'm not sure what decision the girl in "Hills Like White Elephants" made regarding the abortion, or even the true relationship she had with the man in the story, but I believe the preceding quote expresses well the complications she faced throughout her situation. For the girl, the hopeless battle was not an actual battle, but the hopeless relationship she had with the American man who obviously had concerns for little more than his own life situations. He just wanted to keep things 'simple.' I like to think that the girl saw clearly the stupidity of giving up a life for the "unsuccessful attack" that would be trying to please the man by aborting her child so he would stay with her, and that she knew she had to leave him - that there was really "no other thing to do."

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. "Hills Like White Elephants." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Jerome Beatty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969.