Interpretation of Hills Like White Elephants

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Kashonna Haywood Prof. Livesay 9 July 2012 Simple Operation Ernest Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants may have several interpretations because of its vague nature of its dialogue. I feel that the situation and mood of the story is depicted by the scenery and tone. The settings of this story was described as being in a small train station between Madrid and Barcelona, which are two major cities in Spain. Two of the main characters are an American and a girl who are both waiting for the train to Madrid. The scenery described in the story was hills across the valley of Ebro which was long and white, between the train station and the valley there was nothing but emptiness, and the side of the station where the two of them sat nearby and waited. “Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings and bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar”. All of these descriptions play an important role in the meaning of the story. First, the female character is referred to as “the girl”, Hemingway does this to indicate that she is much young than the male character. The girl was very eager about drinking, yet when the drinks arrived she was starring off across the valley looking at the hills. She thinks the hills look like “white elephants”. When she tells him this he says that he has never seen one. Then you will begin to sense the tension increasing in the mood in lines 21-25. They go back and forth until the girl asks for another drink. I believe this implies that the hills are a symbolism of her pregnancy. The whiteness of the hills acts as the representation of the unwanted gift. Next, later in the story the two characters discuss the “operation”. Reading lines 62-66 “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.” The girl looked at

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