Gemperle, Jose Fernando C.

21st Century Literature

STEM Mr. Glenn Beleber

Occasional Paper no. 5

Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

(Deconstruction)

The story is about a conversation between an American man and a girl which are waiting in an
Spanish station for a train going to Madrid. The man wants the girl to have an operation because he thinks
that it would be better for their relationship if she’d do it. However, the girl shows that she does not want
to have this operation, and he noticed that. Then, the man said that she should not do it if she does not
want to, but the girl said that she would do because she wants to have a better relationship with him, not
because she just wants it.

The word “operation” in this story refers to abortion. The man wants the girl to have this
operation because he’s not yet ready for the responsibilities that it would carry if she let this unborn child
live. The girl becomes downcast as she does not want to abort her baby, then while looking at the hills,
she compared it with white elephants and said it to the man. He replied and said, “I’ve never seen one”,
“No, you wouldn’t have” she said. Upon looking on these lines, you may not know what the story conveys,
that’s why it is important to deconstruct the title first.

As the girl compared the hills to white elephants, she meant it figuratively because the hills that
she is referring to is her growing belly. Since she is pregnant, her stomach is going bigger and curve as
what the hills look like. While the white elephant is an idiomatic way of saying something that is expensive
to be kept up yet hard to dispose. Thus, this means that for the girl, she compared her baby inside her
uterus to white elephants since they will be having serious responsibilities in keeping this but it is hard for
her to refuse giving birth.

So, the man might not understand what the girl is trying to say when she compared the hills to
white elephant because he said that he has never seen one. Then the girl replied that he wouldn’t have
because she would have an abortion, and in this manner, he will not be able to see the baby. The story
simply shows the truth that abortion is not as simple as we think since it is life that will be taken away
with this operation. And because, life is the most important thing in this world.