In "Hills Like White Elephants," readers are drawn into a world that echoes the themes found in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, particularly the "A Game of Chess" section. Both works grapple with the sterility and vacuity of the modern world, highlighting a pervasive sense of ennui and disillusionment. Hemingway’s story centers on a man and a girl, whose palpable boredom and desperation underscore the emptiness that characterizes the postwar generation. This narrative thread emphasizes the pressing need for individuals to take responsibility for the quality of their own lives, a theme resonant in Eliot’s poetry as well.

In both Hemingway's and Eliot's works, there is a haunting sense of missed opportunities and unfulfilled love, a lament for a richer life that seems lost forever. The poignant sentiment that "once they take it away, you never get it back" speaks to the irretrievable nature of past joys and potential. Hemingway’s use of landscape as a symbol is particularly striking; where the couple waits, the land is "brown and dry," contrasting sharply with the lush "fields of grain and trees" on the opposite side of the tracks. This stark imagery underscores the girl’s acute awareness of their looming decision. In contemplating an abortion and a life of aimless wandering, they are, in essence, opting for a path of emotional and spiritual barrenness, mirroring the arid landscape surrounding them.