Hills like white elephants

Plot summary:
In this short story, a man, know as The American and his female partner are at the bar of a train station. While they are waiting for their train to arrive, they drink and have a conversation about a certain operation that the girl is to undego.

Themes and recurring elements :
-The conflict between personal responsibility and hedonism
-Coming of age
-Manipulation

Symbolism and setting :
-The hills in distance can be seen as an obstacle for the couple
-When Jig says :"That's all we do, isn't it--look at things and try new drinks" , it means that new things she wanted to try have become ordinary or boring to her
-White elephants can symobolise the swollen stomache of a pregnant women

Dialogue :
-The dialogue doesn't let us know much about the backstory of the characters. We have to figure it out by analysing their body language.
-Since the narrator is not omniscient, we do not know what the american and Jig are thinking. Therefore, we can analyse the story many different ways.


The Author :

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Illinois. He was raised into a strictly religious household. His first writing experience was for his school's paper. He finished high school in 1917 but instead of going to college, he got a job as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. He later joigned the Red Cross Ambulance corp and went off the World War I. Hemingway published many books such as Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938).