"Hills Like White Elephants"
By Ernest Hemingway
The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway

"THE HILLS ACROSS the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.

'It's pretty hot,' the man said.

'Let's drink beer.'

'Dos cervezas,' the man said into the curtain.

'Big ones?' a woman asked from the doorway.

'Yes. Two big ones.'

The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

'They look like white elephants,' she said.

'I've never seen one,' the man drank his beer.

'No, you wouldn't have.'

'I might have,' the man said. 'Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything.'

The girl looked at the bead curtain. 'They've painted something on it,' she said. 'What does it say?'

'Anis del Toro. It's a drink.'

'Could we try it?'

The man called 'Listen' through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.

'Four reales.'

'We want two Anis del Toro.'

'With water?'

'Do you want it with water?'

'I don't know,' the girl said. 'Is it good with water?'

'It's all right.'

'You want them with water?' asked the woman.

'Yes, with water.'

'It tastes like liquorice,' the girl said and put the glass down.

'That's the way with everything.'

'Yes,' said the girl. 'Everything tastes of liquorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe.'

'Oh, cut it out.'

'You started it,' the girl said. 'I was being amused. I was having a fine time.'

'Well, let's try and have a fine time.'

'All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn't that bright?'

'That was bright.'

'I wanted to try this new drink. That's all we do, isn't it - look at things and try new drinks?'

'I guess so.'

The girl looked across at the hills.

'They're lovely hills,' she said. 'They don't really look like white elephants. I just meant the colouring of their skin through the trees.'

'Should we have another drink?'

'All right.'

The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table.

'The beer's nice and cool,' the man said.

'It's lovely,' the girl said.

'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.

'I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in.'

The girl did not say anything.

'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.'

'Then what will we do afterwards?'

'We'll be fine afterwards. Just like we were before.'

'What makes you think so?'

'That's the only thing that bothers us. It's the only thing that's made us unhappy.'

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads.

'And you think then we'll be all right and be happy.'

'I know we will. Yon don't have to be afraid. I've known lots of people that have done it.'

'So have I,' said the girl. 'And afterwards they were all so happy.'

'Well,' the man said, 'if you don't want to you don't have to. I wouldn't have you do it if you didn't want to. But I know it's perfectly simple.'

'And you really want to?'

'I think it's the best thing to do. But I don't want you to do it if you don't really want to.'

'And if I do it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?'

'I love you now. You know I love you.'

'I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you'll like it?'

'I'll love it. I love it now but I just can't think about it. You know how I get when I worry.'

'If I do it you won't ever worry?'

'I won't worry about that because it's perfectly simple.'

'Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about me.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't care about me.'

'Well, I care about you.'

'Oh, yes. But I don't care about me. And I'll do it and then everything will be fine.'

'I don't want you to do it if you feel that way.'

The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.

'And we could have all this,' she said. 'And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.'

'What did you say?'

'I said we could have everything.'

'No, we can't.'

'We can have the whole world.'

'No, we can't.'

'We can go everywhere.'

'No, we can't. It isn't ours any more.'

'It's ours.'

'No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back.'

'But they haven't taken it away.'

'We'll wait and see.'

'Come on back in the shade,' he said. 'You mustn't feel that way.'

'I don't feel any way,' the girl said. 'I just know things.'

'I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do -'

'Nor that isn't good for me,' she said. 'I know. Could we have another beer?'

'All right. But you've got to realize - '

'I realize,' the girl said. 'Can't we maybe stop talking?'

They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table.

'You've got to realize,' he said, ' that I don't want you to do it if you don't want to. I'm perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you.'

'Doesn't it mean anything to you? We could get along.'

'Of course it does. But I don't want anybody but you. I don't want anyone else. And I know it's perfectly simple.'

'Yes, you know it's perfectly simple.'

'It's all right for you to say that, but I do know it.'

'Would you do something for me now?'

'I'd do anything for you.'

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

He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.

'But I don't want you to,' he said, 'I don't care anything about it.'

'I'll scream,' the girl siad.

The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads. 'The train comes in five minutes,' she said.

'What did she say?' asked the girl.

'That the train is coming in five minutes.'

The girl smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her.

'I'd better take the bags over to the other side of the station,' the man said. She smiled at him.

'All right. Then come back and we'll finish the beer.'

He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the bar-room, where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.

'Do you feel better?' he asked.

'I feel fine,' she said. 'There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.'"
--The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway"

"Hills Like White Elephants" was something of an experiment for Hemingway, or perhaps this story was a culmination of several experiments. Ernest Hemingway devoted himself to the true, declarative sentence. Every sentence was either true or eliminated. This is a strange sort of truth: the essential truth of a fictional character floating to the surface of an ocean of Hemingway's own, real life experiences. Late in his career, he said that he never wrote what he knew, but what he knew existed below the surface of every single word.

If Hemingway knew something, he eliminated it from his stories. The existence of his fictional characters depended on the truth that they found for themselves.

But in "Hills Like White Elephants," the crux, the glue of the story has also been eliminated from the narrative--making "Hills" an excellent, and frequent literature class text.

This story, more than any other of Hemingway's works, is about what isn't said. This framework is set up from the very beginning. Some sort of disagreement is taking place between a man and a woman. She compares the hills to white elephants, and the man responds by saying he hasn't seen one. He has a need to hammer home the point that what cannot be seen does not exist.

But consider this exchange (1):

"No, you wouldn't have [seen a white elephant]."

"I might have," the man said. "Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything."

The man sets up two conditions of knowledge, though he does not realize it: nothing is certain until it is seen; and saying something does not create truth.

Meanwhile, time passes without a word. For example, take a look at the passage of time during this exchange (3):

"'Should we have another drink?'

'All right.'

The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table.

'The beer's nice and cool,' the man said.

'It's lovely,' the girl said."

How much time has passed? They agree to order drinks, and now they are drinking cool, lovely beer. Time disturbs the bead curtain several times throughout the story, indicating that the bulk of the real story is passing without any description whatsoever!

Take a look at an earlier scene (exchange 2):

"The man called 'Listen' through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.

'Four reales.'

'We want two Anis del Toro.'

'With water?'

'Do you want it with water?'

'I don't know,' the girl said. 'Is it good with water?'

'It's all right.'

'You want them with water?' asked the woman.

'Yes, with water.'

'It tastes like liquorice,' the girl said and put the glass down."

Think about all the things that happen without being said: there is a bill to be paid; when the bar woman wants to know whether they would like water in the drinks, he must translate from spanish into english for his girlfriend's benefit (though the narrator never said anything in spanish, nor was there mention of a need for translation); the man translates for his girlfriend, but he must know that she will defer to him anyway; and, of course, there is the glaring absence of time's description between the final order, and the girl's comment on the flavor of the drink.

It is easy to assume that this couple is so estranged from each other that nothing is ever spoken; however, in exchange 3, they agree to order drinks and then they are sipping on drinks, but the reader wasn't witness to the actual ordering of the drinks.

We have to accept that time passes, and that the bulk of the story remains hidden. When their conversation finally gets to the core of the issue that exists between them, the reader still is never included in the specifics. The woman looks to the bead curtain several times, as if time could once again hide her from reality. The unspoken remains that way, but she can no longer hide from it, and she is forced to leave the bar.

And the peace of her solitude is broken as the man exits through the bead curtain. Everything remains hidden, but there is nothing at all she can do to hide. The problem is hers, and the man for all his meddling cannot or will not share her burden.

The taboo subject that first year literature students try to pin to words within the text is abortion. Of course, the text never explains; the reader must be willing to read what is not there; and abortion is the most hidden, most taboo of subjects (and doubly so at the time of this story's publishing).

The man wants her to have an abortion. She knows that without the man's support, she will not be able to have the baby. She wants to have the baby; and yet, because this man cannot understand, she knows she will not have the baby. He ruins her--and the ruin is all hers. She suffers all the consequences of the decision; and worse, she will suffer in the solitude of silence. The entire world of men has ex-communicated her even from her own story.

The narrator himself refuses to name the subject of her story.

What does it mean, that she sees hills that look like white elephants? She has created meaning. But both the narrator and the father of the soon-to-be aborted fetus refuse her meaning, refuse her creation.

They leave her story unspoken.

The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway

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