Reflection on “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway

I’ve always been in awe of Ernest Hemingway’s writing especially by how he is able to hide complexity and ambiguity behind simplicity. “Hills like White Elephants” while quite unlike anything I have ever read was no different. How is Hemingway able to say so much with so little? I love how authentic the dialogue is in terms of the way that it captures the feeling of a private conversation. It is interesting to see how the setting foreshadows the conflict between the man and the girl as the station located “between two lines of rails in the sun” reflects the “junction” they are in, as they must make a decision about whether to get an abortion or not.

Yet what struck me most in this dialogue is how despite the presentation of two very distinct characters I could not help but feel that Hemingway was playing on gender stereotypes. The American male was the voice of rationality while the girl was the voice of emotion and morality. While the man’s dialogue is grounded in concrete observations for example “The beer’s nice and cool,” the girl looks at the world with a far greater sense of imagination and subjectivity as she describes the line of hills as looking “like white elephants.” Throughout this short story the man’s voice is also the voice of stability and certainty as he says, “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.” The girl's voice on the other hand is far more uncertain, questioning and insecure. Yet what is interesting is that despite the girl being the voice of emotion, she ultimately seems to have the wiser voice in terms of the way she is able to see their relationship clearer. While the man believes that the abortion will solve all their problems, the girl has an awareness that there may be deeper problems between them as she questions “And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy?”