The symbolism of the dilemma of abortion is so deeply woven through story that after a first reading I had no idea what it was about. The decision to abort a fetus is not an easy one. As is mentioned in the story, many people who do the operation aren’t always happy about the decision they made in retrospect. It is highly doubtful that two adults would be in a foreign country en route to a doctor and making the decision at a train station. Therefore we must discern that Hills Like White Elephants is an enormous euphemism. As is the case in making such a decision, they are at a crossroads. The crossroads is between two major cities. There is also the juxtaposition of the white mountains and the valleys in the distance, and the flat barren wasteland. Symbols of fertility and infertility. The man, behaving as a classic male character is subtly seeking a solution to the pregnancy: the abortion. The girl behaves as a classic woman would and is clearly seeking sympathy. And at the end there is no clear decision, and no resolution. This makes the situation interchangeable and thus more relateable.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Hills Like White Elephants the two main characters are forced to make a choice. What this decision is is never actually spelled out for us in the text. It is up to us to interpret, although many subtle hints are given as to what it could be. The decision to be made between the two characters is whether or not the woman should get an abortion. In the story, a vivid landscape is described, which foreshadows the decision that is at stake. Hemingway sets up the scene in the Spanish countryside with hills and a valley. When the story starts out the main characters are in the valley. The valley is described as having “no shade and no trees…very hot” (1). This description leads us to believe that the woman is currently leaning towards having an abortion. This landscape with no shade and no trees reminds us of a desert; a terrain that reminds us of a barren land, where nothing grows. Later in the story, we see the woman moving from her current spot to looking onto the other side of the hills. On the other side of the hills are “fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro [river]” (70). This imagery represents fertility. From the woman’s current position we can now assume that she is considering keeping the unborn child. By the end of the story, the woman says, “‘I feel fine’…‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine’” (110). We can interpret this as the woman deciding to remain the way she is and not get an abortion.

Ernest Hemingway portrays women within his short stories as inferior to men, and utilizes degrading terms within his literature to characterize the womanly figure. However in juxtaposition to the various claims against Ernest Hemingway as being an antifeminist, Hemingway’s short story, Hills Like White Elephants, embodies the usage of derogatory characterization towards women as a means of character development, to illustrate the growing strength within women.
The two characters within Hills Like White Elephants face an arduous decision as they contemplate their options in regard to child bearing, at a junction between Barcelona and Madrid. Whether the two characters Hemingway depicts chose to board the train to Madrid or not signifies a decision has been made. Within the introductory paragraph Hemingway instantly creates inferiority between the characters within the short story by the Hemingway utilizes demeaning terms within the narration of Hills Like White Elephants to highlight the inferiority between man and woman. “The American” or “The man” serve as respectable terms, that allocate respect and power to the stature of the beholder. However the term “The Girl” depicts a lack of respect and power towards the woman. Throughout the short story, The Man consistently urges the girl to think about following through with an abortion as a means of supposedly regaining a happy relationship, the girl states, “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (64), an illustration of her unrelenting ease to which she adheres to the whims of the male figure. However towards the very end of the short story, when the woman finally decides to stay at the train station, and leave the man, Hemingway refers to the “the girl” as “she”, a term Hemingway never used to describe the girl when she listened to the pleas of the man instead of her own needs. Hemingway also empowers the woman figure, at the resolution of the short story, when he depicts the woman as one of her own decisions and willing to provide for herself in a foreign country as opposed to the traditional system of women being dependent on men.
Hemingway creates a structure within Hills Like White Elephants through diction and setting to illustrate growth within women, as a proponent of feminism.

Although I was initially confused by the context of the story, I now think that Ernest Hemingway uses his mastery of subtlety and euphemism quite well in “Hills Like White Elephants” to describe unavoidable “crossroads” in all sexual/intimate relationships; sacrifice, hope, ambition, and independence. Hemingway actually reminds me of Shakespeare. I am by no means a Shakespeare expert, but I do know that Shakespeare liked to play around with words and trick the audience in their desire to fully understand what was going on in a play. Similarly, Hemingway employs subtlety and allusions, such as the “hills which look like white elephants” referring to a mothers’ breasts, or the “white elephant” itself referring to a surprise, a mystery, just like a pregnancy, which are hard to identify for the reader. At first, I had no idea that this story was about the conflicts in relationships and abortion. However, when I read the introduction to the short story and discussed it with my classmates, I was then able to dive into this story, take a closer look, and discern some of the points that Hemingway was trying to convey; all successful relationships must withstand challenges and situations that involve each partner compromising and sacrificing some of their own needs and desires to satisfy the other’s needs to insure that both parties’ needs are met.