Hills Like White Elephants

“Everything tastes of liquorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.”

Absinthe was popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Paris and was popular among artists and in bohemian culture. It was purported to be mildly hallucinogenic and was even advertised as an aphrodisiac. Its preparation is involved and requires patience, much like waiting for tea to steep. It does, as Jig notes, taste of licorice, and she alludes to the disappointment that often follows anticipation and heightened expectations.

“That’s all we do, isn’t it—look at things and try new drinks?”

This rhetorical question shows Jig’s awareness of, and frustration with, their superficial lifestyle. Her dissatisfaction leads her to later consider how their life might be different if they decided to go through with the pregnancy.

“‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all.’” 

This introduces the true issue the couple is facing. It is also the first time “the girl” is given a name. The reader knows from this very first statement that the man wants her to have the abortion and is pressuring her to agree. He minimizes the seriousness of the abortion, first calling it an operation and then backtracking to say that it is not an operation.

“They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.”

The man downplays the operation, describing it as a sort of spring cleaning that is “perfectly natural.” At the time, abortion was highly dangerous, but this minimization is the beginning of man’s strategic attempts to get Jig to agree with him. It also shows a disregard for Jig’s well-being.

“You know how I get when I worry.” 

Here, the man shows another shade of manipulation. He reframes his aggressiveness as worry. The remark implies that he will continue to worry until the issue is settled to his satisfaction and that Jig can restore the balance of their relationship if she agrees to the abortion.

“If I do it, you won’t ever worry?”

Jig responds to the man’s assertion that he is worried; he is essentially saying that if she has the operation, he will be nice to her again. With this question, she shows a willingness to entertain his “bargain,” though she later has reservations. Jig’s preoccupation with the man’s “worry” indicates her propensity for prioritizing others’ needs above her own—a socialized feminine trait of which Hemingway was well aware and for which he felt compassion, based on his oeuvre.

“Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains.”

Jig’s perspective on their decision shifts when she gets up from the table to look out at this view. This description highlights the difference between where they are now, which is dry and barren, and where they could be, a place she can see, which is fertile and rich. Further, the mountains beyond the fields indicate that this other path includes the possibility of adventure.

“‘And we could have all this,’ she said. ‘And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.’”

Jig recognizes that they can still choose another way of life—a richer, more purposeful one. She also sees that with every choice they make, they are getting further from that meaningful life. She realizes that their choice, and their direction, are under their control.

“And once they take it away, you never get it back.”

This statement furthers the previous quote, recognizing that some things, once denied, can never be regained. More explicitly, it refers to the fact that once the pregnancy is terminated, that decision is final. But in a larger sense, it is a recognition that at a certain point, they may not be able to choose another way of living.

“‘I don’t feel any way,’ the girl said. ‘I just know things.’”

After Jig sees the possibility of a different life—and also sees that possibility slipping away—the man dismisses her comments by attributing them to emotion. In this quote, Jig reasserts herself, attributing her comments not to emotion but to knowledge, or perhaps a kind of intuitive wisdom and understanding that the man lacks.

“Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” 

Jig finally loses her temper and shows real emotion. Through the use of repetition, Hemingway shocks the reader into understanding the depth of her distress. Similarly, the man is finally shocked into silence, at least momentarily.

“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.”

To the man, the baggage symbolizes their relationship, and the hotel labels are a direct representation of their history. A reader, however, also sees the impermanence of their lifestyle reflected in these hotel labels.

“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.”

The heavy bags also symbolize the weight of the decision they are making, as well as the new seriousness that their relationship has acquired. The fact that the train is not yet visible symbolizes how the couple cannot yet move on from this decision.