look like white elephants. This suggests that she has a unique, lively imagination. The man that she is with responds to her observation saying, “I’ve never seen one.” This suggests that he took her comparison literally and his not as imaginative or creative. It also tells the reader that he is self-centered.

Jig’s observation of the hills also symbolizes her illusions about life and her desire to see what is not really there. As the story unfolds the reader learns that the couple has a tense relationship in which the man pressures Jig to have an abortion. Their relationship is reflective of Hemingway’s perspective on the post-World War I world. In many of his works, he depicts society at this time as a misguided place, one that is particularly hopeless for relationships. Jig wishes that her relationship could be happy, but this wish, just like the idea that the hills are white elephants, is nothing but an illusion.

The other two landscapes that Hemingway focuses on strongly contrast one another. The couple is drinking on the side of the train station where the country is "brown and dry.” This is a barren terrain that is symbolic of the couple’s relationship. The pair does not have an authentic emotional connection and their relationship lacks a sense of color and life, just like the landscape. It is also interesting to note that they end up taking the train on this barren side of the land, which suggests that they decide not to have their baby.

The third terrain is anything but brown and dry. Consider the moment when Jig gets up and walks to the end of the train station. She looks out in front of her and sees the landscape across from her on the other side. She sees fields of grain and trees along the banks of the river. Beyond that she sees mountains. She reflects on this landscape and says “And we could have all of this.” This line connects this landscape to the potential idea of her having the baby. It is fertile land that is full of different types of life and promises beautiful experiences. This landscape reflects the alleged promises that come with having children and what the woman dreams could be for her family. But the ending suggests that just like the dreams reflected in the hills like white elephants, the idea that the couple could have such a lush life is nothing but an illusion.

In "Hills Like White Elephants," the hills are symbolic of the relationship between the couple as well as the couple's unborn child.

When the woman comments that the hills near the station where they are waiting for a train look like white elephants, she is met with sarcasm and discontent from the man she is traveling with. He is distracted and short with her.

It becomes clear that he wants her to get an abortion. She comments on their life together, saying, "That's all we do, isn't it—look at things and try new drinks?" She is looking for something novel because her life feels as barren as the hills around them. The potential the baby represents is a way they might be able to change for the better. 

The man she is with is unable to see anything past his own concerns. He responds to her asking if will be kinder and like what she says after the abortion, saying, "I'll love it. I love it now but I just can't think about it. You know how I get when I worry."

She, on the other hand, sees other opportunities for their life together, beyond drinks and hotel rooms. She recognizes that the hills may be barren—but there are other nearby landscapes teeming with life and activity. 

The greatest symbolism in the story comes from the term "white elephants." According to Oxford Living Dictionaries, a white elephant is something burdensome to keep or difficult to dispose of. The term came from Kings of Siam who would give white elephants to people they were not fond of; the person could not refuse the gift, but it was expensive and difficult to care for.

She says the hills are like white elephants because she's seeing them as her pregnancy: barren, white rolling hills that reflect the way her torso would look if she kept their child. She knows that to the man, the child is just a white elephant. To her, on the other hand, it might be something more. She even looks at the hills later in the story and says, "They're lovely hills...They don't really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees."

The hills also mimic the woman's growing abdomen and her white skin; her condition mimics the snow-capped mountains over which the train in passing, and of which both the man and woman are largely trying to ignore.  There is also a certain coldness of the mountainous terrain which mimics the icy nature of the relationship between the man and woman. 

Traditionally, a "white elephant" is a possession that, while valuable, is not wanted by its owner. Today, we see in our culture "white elephant" gift exchanges, often between people who are just casual friends and do not want to buy gifts for one another--they are often popular at office parties. The fact that the young woman sees an image of white elephants in the hills is significant because she too is carrying something that is precious but still not wanted--a baby. 

Authors love their titles and put a great deal of thought into writing them. Frequently a title will communicate symbolism or irony or relate to a particular theme in the story or novel. Hemingway's title, "Hills Like White Elephants," does relate to the story itself in a very significant way. It draws the reader's attention to a specific exchange of dialog between Jig and the American that reveals a great deal about them as individuals and about their flawed relationship.

At one point in the story, Jig walks to the railing on the station platform and looks across the plain to the mountains. She observes that they look like white elephants. The American dismisses her words, just as he dismisses her feelings about their relationship and the baby she is carrying. Jig is a woman of sensitivity and deep emotion. She recognizes, for instance, the beauty she sees across the landscape. Her lover, however, is insensitive and shallow; he is aware only of himself and his own needs and desires. He values nothing except himself and life as he wants it to be--a life of pleasure without real purpose. He does not notice the mountains, and if he did, he would not see them in a sensitive or beautifully artistic way. He and Jig look at the world, and their relationship, in different ways. The story develops from this contrast in their characters and their conflicting values.

“Hills Like White Elephants” is the story of an American couple, an unnamed man and his girlfriend, Jig, who are having a discussion of sorts about something quite important. They talk about an “operation” that the man wants Jig to have. She, however, is hesitating. They talk all around the issue, trying to keep the conversation light. Jig thinks the hills look like white elephants. The man thinks this is ridiculous.

Yet the conversation keeps coming back to the “operation.” The man keeps assuring Jig that it is “all perfectly natural” and not really anything at all. He says that he does not want her to do it if she doesn't want to, yet he keeps pressing her. He wants them to be just like they were before, apparently free and able to do what they want with their lives.

At this point readers might realize that the man and Jig are talking about abortion. Jig wants to begin to settle down, to appreciate the beauty of life, and perhaps to keep their child. The man is self-centered. He wants freedom and the shallow life they currently lead.

We never find out the results of the conversation. Jig says she will go through with the “operation,” but she may or may not when the time comes. The story, then, may potentially be about three people, rather than two, depending on Jig's final decision.

At the beginning of the story, as the couple waits for a train while sitting at the bar, Jig remarks that the hills in the distance "look like white elephants." She seems to be attempting to make casual conversation with the American. He is, however, a bit testy and irritably replies to her comments. When she suggests that he wouldn't have ever seen a white elephant, he responds, "I might have . . . Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything." After a bit of banter about drinks and drinking (typical of a Hemingway story), the true meaning of the white elephant becomes apparent.

A white elephant is a burdensome gift. Legend says that the King of Siam would give albino elephants as a gift to his enemies with the expectation that the upkeep of such a beast would be a serious inconvenience for the recipient. In Hemingway's story the white elephant is the unborn baby which Jig carries. The man argues that she should have an abortion ("just to let the air in"), which she clearly rejects. Thus the hills change from being a simple element of the setting to a metaphor for what the American clearly believes to be something unwanted in the couple's relationship.

"Hills Like White Elephants" is short, even by the usual standard of short stories. The transitions in it are generally gradual and subtle. For instance, we realize fairly slowly that there is an argument simmering under the surface. One might take the girl's assertion that the man "wouldn't have" seen a white elephant, and his retort, as the first indication, but this could merely be persiflage, too subtle to be regarded as a shift.

The first true shift in the story takes place when the man first mentions the operation:

"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.

Until this point, the girl has been speaking more than the man, and seems to have been trying to draw him into conversation. Now, she becomes silent, and he has to speak three times to elicit a reply. These words also introduce the topic which has been the "elephant in the room" between them.

The second and final shift, close to the end of the story, comes when the girl refuses to listen to any more of the man's attempts at persuasion, saying:

Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?

Although he attempts to broach the subject one more time, this is the point at which the story's central topic is essentially shut down, and the two characters address themselves to the practicalities of catching the train and continuing their journey.