Themes: Choices and Consequences

In "Hills Like White Elephants," a couple is facing a significant dilemma. Although they are not married, the woman is expecting a child, and the man, who is responsible for the pregnancy, is urging her to have an abortion. He believes that by choosing abortion, they can return to their previous way of life before the pregnancy occurred. He is unwilling to share her with anyone else, particularly not a baby, and he fears that having a child will...

Themes: Doubt and Ambiguity

The narrative of Jig and the American is filled with uncertainty and ambiguity, affecting both the characters and the audience. Although the American speaks with apparent confidence, his real motives are ambiguous. Additionally, he struggles to fully grasp the implications of the abortion he so eagerly wants Jig to have.

Jig seems skeptical that abortion is the best choice, yet she still seeks reassurance from the American that he will stay with...

Themes: Men and Women

In "Hills Like White Elephants," Hemingway explores the interactions between men and women. His stories often feature a strong masculine perspective, with leading characters who are typically patriarchal and sexist. However, as Peter Messent notes, this particular story "foregrounds a woman’s point of view." The more the American man talks, the more ridiculous he seems. For example, he tells Jig, "It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig......

Themes: Sterility and Vacuity of the Modern World

“Hills Like White Elephants” calls to mind the “A Game of Chess” section of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land(1922); like Eliot’s masterpiece, Hemingway’s story deals with the sterility and vacuity of the modern world. The boredom of the man and the desperation of the girl reveal the emptiness of the postwar generation and the crucial necessity of taking responsibility for the quality of one’s own life. Both Eliot’s poetry and Hemingway’s...

Themes: Existential Freedom and Responsibility

Hemingway’s characters seem to live in a world without a God, without traditions or clear and established values; they are, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s words, “condemned to be free” and consequently are responsible for their own meaning. The man here is unequal to the challenge; he is a bored and listless fragment of a human being. He resolutely refuses to speak truthfully, to acknowledge his own hypocrisy. His unwillingness to be honest—and, by...

Themes: Reason vs. Emotion

One particularly interesting aspect of Hemingway’s uncompromising dissection of the poverty of the modern world in this story is the juxtaposition of reason and emotion or imagination. The man is perfectly reasonable. He lives in a senseless and violent world; he has the financial resources to do as he pleases; he reasonably concludes that he should enjoy his life, not encumber himself with unnecessary conflicts or responsibilities, certainly not...

Themes: Gender Dynamics and Superiority of the Woman

Another interesting facet of this story in the context of Hemingway’s fiction is the clear superiority of the woman to the man. Hemingway is not particularly kind to women generally, certainly not to women who want to have children. Usually such women are interested in asserting their sexual power over men and in depriving men of their freedom and their maleness. This girl may prove to be angry and frustrated enough to evolve into a castrating...

Themes: Condemnation of Modern World

Hemingway’s brief and seemingly objective story is a powerful condemnation of the aimlessness, hypocrisy, and moral and spiritual poverty of the modern world.

Themes: Relationships

In "Hills Like White Elephants," the theme of relationships is central, exploring the complex dynamics between the American man and Jig. Their relationship is marked by emotional dependency rather than genuine love, reflecting Hemingway's modernist perspective on the post-World War I world. The story uses symbolism, particularly through the landscape, to illustrate the couple's strained connection and differing desires.

The story opens with Jig's...