Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway: Full Story, Summary, Analysis, Symbolism, Themes, Characters. Get Literary Analysis Paper Writing Help
The hills across the valley of the Ebro* were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees, and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies.
The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went on to Madrid.
"What should we drink?" the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.
"It's pretty hot," the man said.
"Let's drink beer."
"Dos cervezas," the man said into the curtain.
"Big ones?" a woman asked from the doorway.
"Yes. Two big ones."
The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
"They look like white elephants," she said.
"I've never seen one," the man drank his beer.
"No, you wouldn't have."
"I might have," the man said. "Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything."
The girl looked at the bead curtain.
"They've painted something on it," she said. "What does it say?"
"Anis del Toro. It's a drink."
"Could we try it?"
The man called "Listen" through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.
"Four reales."
"We want two Anis del Toro."
"With water?"
"Do you want it with water?"
"I don't know," the girl said. "Is it good with water?"
"It's all right."
"You want them with water?" asked the woman.
"Yes, with water."
"It tastes like licorice," the girl said and put the glass down.
"That's the way with everything."
"Yes," said the girl. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."
"Oh, cut it out."
"You started it," the girl said. "I was being amused. I was having a fine time."
"Well, let's try and have a fine time."
"All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn't that bright?"
"That was bright."
"I wanted to try this new drink. That's all we do, isn't it—look at things and try new drinks?"
" I guess so."
The girl looked across at the hills.
"They're lovely hills," she said. "They don't really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees."
"Should we have another drink?"
"All right."
The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table.
"The beer's nice and cool," the man said.
"It's lovely," the girl said.
"It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig," the man said. "It's not really an operation at all."
The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.
" I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in."
The girl did not say anything.
"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."
"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."
"Well," the man said, "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."
"And you really want to?"
" I think it's the best thing to do. But I don't want you to do it if you don't really want to."
"And if I do it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?"
"I love you now. You know I love you."
"I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you'll like it?"
"I'll love it. I love it now but I just can't think about it. You know how I get when I worry."
"If I do it you won't ever worry?"
"I won't worry about that because it's perfectly simple."
"Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about me."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't care about me."
"Well, I care about you."
"Oh, yes. But I don't care about me. And I'll do it and then everything will be fine."
"I don't want you to do it if you feel that way."
The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.
"And we could have all this," she said. "And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible."
"What did you say?"
"I said we could have everything."
"We can have everything."
"No, we can't."
"We can have the whole world."
"No, we can't."
"We can go everywhere."
"No, we can't. It isn't ours any more."
"It's ours."
"No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back."
"But they haven't taken it away."
"We'll wait and see."
"Come on back in the shade," he said. "You mustn't feel that way."
"I don't feel any way," the girl said. "I just know things."
" I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do—"
"Nor that isn't good for me," she said. "I know. Could we have another beer?"
"All right. But you've got to realize—"
"I realize," the girl said. "Can't we maybe stop talking?"
They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table.
"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 stop talking?"
He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.
"But I don't want you to," he said, "I don't care anything about it."
"I'll scream," the girl said.
The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads.
"The train comes in five minutes," she said.
"What did she say?" asked the girl.
"That the train is coming in five minutes."
The girl smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her.
"I'd better take the bags over to the other side of the station," the man said. She smiled at him.
"All right. Then come back and we'll finish the beer."
He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the barroom, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people.
They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.
"Do you feel better?" he asked.
"I feel fine," she said. "There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine."
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway was originally published in transition (a literary magazine) in August 1927. It later was included in his second short story collection Men Without Women, Charles Scribner & Sons, October 1927.
There has been a plethora of criticism examining one of Ernest Hemingway's most powerful short stories, "Hills Like White Elephants." However, one approach that may merit more attention is an exploration of Hemingway's notions of "action" and of the irreversibility of action within the text. Hannah Arendt, an intellectual whose germinal work has transcended more than one discipline, may be useful in providing some measure of insight into Hemingway's problematic narrative.
I would like to begin by examining certain rhetorical elements of "Hills," which suggest traces of Arendt's perspectives on the "nature of action." More specifically, Arendt's influential study, The Human Condition, suggests that the dissonance found in the relationship between Jig and the American primarily arises from their differing viewpoints regarding the Arendtian notion of irreversibility. That is to say, the issue is far more important than considerations of the potential abortion, which is the explicit topic of their combative dialogue, as critics have noted (Gillette 50-69; O'Brien 19-25; Rankin 234; Urgo 35).
We might consider that Jig, in her overtly rhetorical ex- changes with the American, illustrates (and promotes) the concept of irreversibility, as she suggests that the conception of life (an action, in essence, as it is a beginning) within her cannot be undone, while the American argues against irreversibility, as he believes that the conception can be “undone" by the act of abortion. As Stanley Renner proffers in his “Moving to the Girl's Side of 'Hills Like White Elephants," "[I]n choosing whether to abort or to have the child, the couple are [sic] choosing between two ways of life" (28). This forty-minute exchange determining the end decision—abortion or life-reveals that the couple is also choosing between two ways of living- either living in such a way so that actions can be “undone,” so to say, or liv- ing in such a way where actions bring consequences that are absolute.
Throughout the story the American attempts to articulate and advance his belief in reversibility. However, his own actions and statements undermine his attempts to do so. One can first see this situation in the exchange begun by Jig's comment about the hills in the distance, as this moment initiates the heated philosophical discussion. As David Wyche perceptively states, “This bit of dialogue establishes the characters' opposing positions in what is, essentially, an emotionally charged negotiation” (61). Seated outside the bar, the couple enters into dialogue—the dilemma at hand being whether or not the couple should (or can) have an abortion and thus reverse the conception.
While staring off into the distance, Jig remarks that the hills "look like white elephants," to which the American responds, “I've never seen one” (211). Jig views the hills as white elephants, as entities so large and powerful that they require attention and disallow negotiation, much like the baby within her womb—a connection that Stanley Kozikowski makes: “Hills are like white elephants for Jig because they carry ambivalent evocations of the child within her—like a white elephant, an unwanted gift, a seemingly re- mote but immense problem" (107). The American, on the other hand, claims to have never seen a white elephant, a statement that suggests he does not believe in entities or actions that cannot be undone.
However, his rhetorical position is weakened by his unwillingness to look up and assess the hills for himself. He responds to his beer, rather than to Jig, as following his statement, the narrator says, “[T]he man drank his beer,” rather than something like, “The man said,” or, “The man responded” (Hemingway 211; 55-56). When Jig snaps back, “You wouldn't have,” the American replies, “Just be- cause you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything” (211). In his response, the American, perhaps unwittingly, takes power away from speech, through which the two ways in which actions can be reversed—the making of promises and forgiveness—occur. As such, within this exchange about the hills, Jig constructs the fetus within her womb as irreversible and non-negotiable, much like a white elephant, while the American attempts to forward his belief in reversibility—in the abortion of actions. Yet the American fails to con- struct the plurality necessary for such actions to be reversed, as he talks into his beer and limits the power of his own statements.
Another such exchange occurs when Jig and the American try Anis del Toro. Upon imbibing the drink, Jig comments that "[i]t tastes like licorice," to which the American responds, “That's the way with everything” (212). The American's response plays into Jig's beliefs about irreversibility, for she seizes upon the chance to rephrase the statement and direct it back toward the American: "Yes," she says. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe" (Hemingway 212). Perhaps the American only meant to dismiss Jig's childish statement about licorice; however, in doing so, he opened the door for her to make a philosophical statement about consequence. In saying that everything amounts to one thing-one "taste"-Jig suggests that actions have an absolute consequence, one that leaves a bitter taste that cannot be undone. After a succession of comments about each rhetorician's motivation, Jig concludes, "That's all we do, isn't it look at things and try new drinks?" (Hemingway 212).
Jig's statement indirectly reproves the American for not allowing action within the relationship. The only action she has seen, in her opinion, was the conception, and the American will not even allow that to progress to full term. Detecting Jig's intimation, David Wyche writes that "[Jig] manages to articulate, again figuratively, what has no doubt been an increasing awareness of the emptiness of the couple's lifestyle to date" (62). Similarly, Paul Rankin sur- mises that, despite the American's desire to "act" on the conception, his char- acter is "essentially passive in nature": "the man has nothing to offer, nothing to contribute to the story, just as he has nothing more to contribute to Jig's pregnancy" (235). As such, despite the American's desire to reverse the action—the life—he created through the abortion, his passivity inhibits his rhetorical position.
The rhetorical struggle culminates in a battle between the cans and the cannots a battle that Jig incites when she looks upon the field and the mountains and says, "And we could have all this . . . . And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible" (213). She clearly makes this statement to spite her lover, who agrees with her that, once Jig had the abortion, they could do and have anything they wanted. Every time the American suggests something (clearly impossible) they could have or do post-abortion, Jig responds, "No, we can't" (213). After the American's con- cluding remark ("We can go everywhere"), Jig replies, "No, we can't. It isn't ours any more," and later comments that "once they take it away, you never get it back" (213).
At this point Jig cements her belief in irreversibility in the face of the American, who now is at a rhetorical disadvantage and can only make impossible remarks. In these lines, Jig insists that “undoing" some- thing-reversing something—such as the conception of life is an impossibility, for though something can be removed or killed, in the case of the fetus, that something was once present-was once a reality—and, as such, can never be truly reversed. True reversal would require Jig and the American to "forgive and forget," so to say-something that Jig, once having had life within her, cannot do. It is clear that if Jig went through with the abortion, she would never be able to view the world in the same way—nothing could ever be hers again, for she would have lost something that was truly important to her. After this exchange during which Jig seemingly wins the rhetor- ical battle over the potential of irreversibility, she refuses to discuss the matter anymore. Whether or not she has the abortion is open to debate, although the issue of irreversibility, once on the table, has been removed from the discussion.
The story concludes with Jig smiling—yet not because she has discerned the fate of her unborn child, but rather because she has asserted her beliefs regarding the notion of irreversibility and has won the rhetorical battle against her lover, the American. She "feel[s] fine," perhaps, as a result of this knowledge of rhetorical victory, rather than as a result of her thinking—at least temporarily—she will not go through with the abortion, as Hilary K. Justice and Stanley Renner say, or as a result of her being inebriated, as Phillip Sipiora suggests (25–26; 40; 50). Without knowing the fate of Jig's un- born child, the reader can surmise that Jig has successfully promoted her claims of the irreversibility of actions (particularly conceptions), while the American, although attempting to forward the reversibility of actions, has failed in such attempts.
By not acting and fostering plurality through his dialogue, he is not able to utilize the two Arendtian modes of reversal that would be open to him—namely, forgiveness and the making of promises. His promises are not grounded in reality, for what he has to offer includes the whole world—a non-reality, which Jig jumps to point out. Moreover, he cannot talk Jig into forgiving him for impregnating her, nor can he "forgive" her for conceiving a child by enabling her to carry it to term. While neither partner agrees with the other, there is a clear rhetorical victor. As no concordance is reached, the reader is merely left with the conclusion that, based upon the rhetorical aspects of the text, Jig has emerged rhetorically victorious, while the American has lost control of the situation and must resort to interacting with others inside the bar and acting as Jig's porter, moving the luggage to the other side of the tracks.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1958. Print. Elliott, Gary. "Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." Explicator 35 (1977): 22–23. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Gillette, Meg in "Making Modern Parents in Ernest Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants' And Vina Delmar's Bad Girl." Modern Fiction Studies 53.1 (Spring 2007): 50-69. Project Muse. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants." The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Scribner, 1987. 211-214. Print.
Justice, Hilary K. “Well, Well, Well': Cross-Gendered Autobiography and the Manuscript of 'Hills Like White Elephants." The Hemingway Review 18.1 (Fall 1998): 17-32. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Kozikowski, Stanley. "Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." Explicator 52 (1994): 107-109. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
O'Brien, Timothy. "Allusion, Word-Place, and the Central Conflict in Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." The Hemingway Review 12.1 (Fall 1992): 19-25. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Organ, Dennis. "Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." Explicator 37 (1979): 11. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Rankin, Paul. "Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." Explicator 63.4 (Summer 2005): 234-237. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Renner, Stanley. "Moving to the Girl's Side of 'Hills Like White Elephants." The Hemingway Review 15.1 (Fall 1995): 27-41. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Sipiora, Phillip. "Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." Explicator 42 (1984): 50. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Urgo, Joseph R. "Hemingway's 'Hills Like White Elephants." Explicator 46.3 (1988): 35-37. Web. Academic Search Premier. 30 May 2011.
Wyche, David. "Letting the Air Into a Relationship: Metaphorical Abortion in 'Hill White Elephants." The Hemingway Review 22.1 (2002): 58-73. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30. Oct. 2010.
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