Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”

Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927), published in the little magazine transition and in the collection Men Without Women, is one of Hemingway’s most frequently taught stories, appearing in the most recent Norton anthologies of American Literature and Short Fiction, among other textbooks over the years. The class discussion that ensues of whether or not the protagonist goes through with the abortion and whether the couple remains together is ideal for teaching close reading practices. As Meg Gillette rightly notes, “Ultimately [... ] it’s the reader, and not the characters, who supplies the literary performance the story desires. With her exhortation, ‘Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?,’ Jig concedes the failure of their language to produce an accord” (57). Of course, I don’t ask my students to stop talking, but I acknowledge the ambiguities of the text and the possibility that it supports any number of seemingly contradictory conclusions. Hemingway’s own stance on abortion is likewise contradictory. In a 1933 letter to his youngest sister, Carol, Hemingway scolded her on her sex-positive attitude and the savings she had set aside in case she needed an abortion: “Abortion is murder [... ] If it is of any interest I can tell you about a few abortions [... ] I can tell you that abortion ruins the body and kills the spirit” (Letters Volume 5 319). However, other evidence in his letters suggests that his wife Pauline may have terminated at least one pregnancy, possibly more. Nevertheless, Hemingway was enraged when his sister rejected his fatherly advice because, their father having died, he viewed himself as the family’s patriarch. Students typically interpret the American’s actions as paternalistic and point to details such as his being the one who orders the drinks, his greater freedom of movement around the train station setting, and his continuing to speak after the girl has begged him to stop. I encourage these and other readings that look carefully at the “diabolically ambiguous” story (Justice 50).