Conflict Compounded by Complication in Earnest Hemingway’s "Hills Like White Elephants"

Although Earnest Hemingway does not actually use the word abortion  in the story “Hills Like White Elephants” it is clear that it is the subject of conversation between an American man and a girl named Jig as they wait for a train in the beautiful hot valley of Ebro, Spain. The train would take them to the town of Madrid where the operation would take place. The inner conflict Jig faces is compounded by the persistence of the difficult American as they wait.

The conflict lies in Jig’s heart and mind. She is tormented by having to abort her baby. As she looks toward the hills she sees a country that is dry and brown: empty and barren. She tries to ignore the implications of the emptiness by verbally comparing the beauty of the hills to white elephants. The American instead of agreeing with her states that he had never seen one. When she replies “no, you wouldn’t have” he gets defensive and quickly puts her in her place. She humbly accepted his rebuke and turned her focus elsewhere.  

 A curtain, made of bamboo beads, hung in the doorway of the train station’s bar. It had writing painted on it that the girl couldn’t read. This tells us that the girl like the American is not a native of Spain. She asked the American what it said. He told her that it was a name of a drink called Anis del Toro. Her dependence on the man became evident when she asks if they could try one. When the drink arrived with a glass of water she took a drink and commented that it tastes bitter. The American agreed and added that everything in life is bitter. His comment compelled her to again think of why they were at the train station. She then expresses her feelings that like absinthe even the things you have waited for a long time turns out to be bitter. This statement tells the reader that she had waited a long time to become pregnant and she bitterly hated that she was going to have to give it up.

Jig was concerned that the relationship she had with the American would end if she didn’t have the abortion. She knew that he had not been happy since finding out she was pregnant. She asks him if he would be happy and love her if she went through with it. She wanted him to be happy and to like it when she said things were like white elephants instead of blankly answering, he would give her a smile and a thoughtful reply.

The American’s selfishness is the complication of the story. His main concern is what he wants. When Jig ask him if he would be happy again and like it when she said things were like white elephants his reply proved his self-centeredness. “I’ll love it but I can’t think about it. You know how I get when I worry.”  He refers to himself three times in this one statement. He couldn’t be worried with thinking about how things would be later. He could only think of how unhappy he was at that time.

It is clear that the American is not concerned that Jig wants to keep the baby. He is content to “look at things and try new drinks.” He wanted to keep traveling the country side free of worries. His freedom is the most important thing to him. If he had a child he would have to settle down and that was not in his plans. He selfishly tried to ignore the sadness that accompanied Jig’s feelings of not wanting to go through with it. When he could no longer ignore the sadness he told her how simple it would be and that he would be there with her. His pretense of caring left her looking at the floor wondering what the future would hold for them. Her questions referring to rather he cared or not lead her to answers she really didn’t want to hear: the kind of answers that made her upset and forced her to insist that he shut up.

Jig’s moment of change came when she realized that there was no convincing him to want the baby to. Before this day she was happy: they both were but now things were different. She knew that she would never be happy with the decision he had made for them and realized that the relationship she had with him would soon end because of it. Things would not be the same as he had so adamantly expressed a few minutes before.

There is no resolution in this story. Ernest Hemingway leaves the reader to determine their own ending: a writing trait that is very well known about Mr. Hemingway. His famous way of writing leaves the reader alone with their imagination to ponder the outcome of the conflict. We will never know rather Jig had the abortion or not. Nevertheless, we can consider that if she did have the abortion her love for the American was engulfed with the baby.

 Pickering, J. H. (2010). Fiction 100 An Anthology of Short Stort Fiction Twelth Edition. PearsonEducation, Inc.