Hills Like White Elephants, Metaphorically

5 Pages 1153 Words

Having read Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” several times, it seems to be a story that doesn’t make much sense. The two main characters, the American man and his female companion referred to as “girl”, are having a conversation that supports this theory. Their conversation turns into a short, familiar argument, but one that isn’t clear, even having read it several times.
In the introduction preceding the short story, it states that “Hemingway has a concise way of developing a plot through dialogue and once explained how he achieved an intense compression by comparing his method to the principle of the iceberg: There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story” (pg. 233). What this tells the reader is that Hemingway explained many things through the use of metaphors, leaving only the unknown. The question the reader must then ask is what is the metaphor in “Hills Like White Elephants” and what does it represent?
While waiting for a train at a junction somewhere in Spain, the dialogue between the American man and the girl over a few drinks seems simplistic at first but the sarcasm on behalf of the girl surfaces the tensions that exist between the two characters. Her sarcasm and their argument begin when she says, “Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe” (pg. 234). Instead of looking at the man accompanying her, the girl consistently admires the hills, almost as if she is envious of them. The man changes the tone of their conversation when he says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig, it’s not really an operation at all” (pg. 235). The girl had no response. Instead she had feelings of guilt...