Hills Like White Elephants

One of the stories we read in our Intro to the English Major course was "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. I read this short story in high school, and for some reason I really liked it. I think it's because the entire story is so annoyingly confusing, because no one has any idea what the man and the woman are talking about at the bar; that is, until about the second and third page. One could interpret the story in many different ways, but I believe that their conversation, and therefore the entire plot, is about abortion. The man is trying to be comforting to the woman, but only comes off as putting the entire weight of the responsibility on the woman's shoulders, somewhat forcing to her to choose. It is obvious, however, that the man is putting pressure on her to abort the baby, claiming that he's "known lots of people who have done it." The woman acts as though she wants the baby, but then decides otherwise at the end. "Hills Like White Elephants" is told from a very misogynistic way (since Ernest Hemingway was also a known misogynist).

The thing I like about the story, though, is that the woman refers to the baby in the vaguest way possible, by claiming that the hills across the way from the bar in Spain look like white elephants. Although white elephants do exist, a white elephant is often referred to when discussing something burdensome, like a child out of wedlock. By referencing this idiom, she is hinting to the readers to not just stop on the surface of her conversation with the man, but to look deeper and question what is really going on. Hemingway makes people really think when reading this, instead of seeing the meaning immediately and easily, which I think is fantastic.