Hills Like White Elephants

                The short story „Hills Like White Elephants“, written by Earnest Hemingway, is about a couple talking indirectly about an upcoming abortion and its consequences.

                While waiting for their train in a Spanish train station, an American couple has a few drinks and talks, at first sight, about trivial objects around them. The girl named Jig looks at the line of the hills, thinks of white elephants and tells the man about her thoughts. Reading between the lines, the reader understands that the couple will have a baby and is in fact discussing about an abortion. The white elephants and the two felt pads for the glasses can be seen as symbols for the pregnancy. The man, to comfort the girl, tells her about the operation which he considers “awfully simple”, and which has been done many times before. In his opinion, the baby is the only problem that bothers their happy relationship and everything will be fine after the abortion. Jig agrees finally to abort her child but she seems to follow the man’s wish and is rather unsure about her own opinion on the topic.