FREE ESSAY ON HEMMINGWAY'S HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

HEMMINGWAY'S HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

Setting is important to every story, but the setting used by Hemmingway in "Hills Like
White Elephants" adds so much to the meaning of the story, providing an interesting read.
His use of the setting to convey the idea of fertility and barrenness helps to generate
an understanding of what the story is about, even though he never comes right out and
says "It's about abortion."
The language used at the beginning of the story is simple and straightforward, telling
the reader that the place is the Valley of Ebro, which is in Spain. The reader is also
aware that the couple is at a train station. The hills refereed to in the title can be
seen in the distance, and resemble the swell of a womb, and white elephants, representing
an idiom of something useless and unwanted, which in this case is the fetus growing
inside the girl. 
The impression presented is that the characters are at a train station in the middle of a
dry barren place, under the sun, with no shade or trees, reinforcing the idea of the lack
of life. The character are themselves in the warm shadow of the building, separated from
the world by a curtain, yet still in nature, where life is. 
Use of the train station as the location what the story takes place is significant
because of the confusing conversation that dominate the bulk of the story. The
conversation between the man and woman is much like the train tracks, running parallel,
yet never meeting. The man and woman are talking, but neither is hearing what is being
said. The train station also represents the importance of time to the situation. The
train they are waiting to catch will only be stopping for a couple of minutes, suggesting
that it is an express train, representing the short amount of time that the girl has to
change her mind about having the abortion.
The hills are central to the story, for it is through them the reader can find an
understanding in the confusion of the conversation. When the girl refers to them as
looking like "white elephants", the man says he has never seen one, indicating that he
has never been a father.
The rich description that Hemmingway uses to establish setting in "Hills Like White
Elephants" leads to an understanding of the overall story line, which is that the girl is
pregnant and thinking of getting an abortion. As she sits staring at the hills in the
distance, she begins to question her decision to rid herself of the baby, whom the man
thinks of as a white elephant, cumbersome, and unwanted. The setting helps the reader to
understand the importance of time, and provides some phallic symbols to suggest the
sexual undertones of the relationship between the girl and the man.