Hills Like White Elephants

Just like the Hemingway stories we have been reading all semester, “Hills Like White Elephants”, is a perfect example of the iceberg style where little is revealed and there is a great deal beneath the surface.  A majority of the story is told through the dialogue between the American man and his girlfriend, where the two actually discuss little.  They mostly just talk around each other and do not seem to know how to communicate with each other.  Most of the time, they don’t even seem to be answering each other, but just saying what they feel without the other understanding.  Even without a direct conversation between the two, I was getting a sense that the story was about much more than Hemingway was letting on.  Though their conversation didn’t make much sense and it was fairly trivial, there was an underlying sense of something serious happening. 

            Once the idea of an operation was brought up in the end, I started to get the idea that what they were talking about could be an abortion, but wasn’t completely sure.  It was the only operation I could think of that would bring about all of the tension and frustration between the two. Just in case I was way off, I looked up a couple of interpretations of the story and found out that the consensus is that she is pregnant and he is trying to convince her to abort the baby.  She seems to be enjoying the idea of having the baby and doesn’t want to get rid of it, while the American seems to be attempting to manipulate her into having it so they continue as they are.  He is just playing it off as a simple operation that would be quick and painless, something that isn’t a big deal.  This obviously isn’t the case; it would be a horrible experience that would change her life forever, but he doesn’t care as long as nothing would change in his own life or negatively effect him. 

            It is all left up in the air in the end for the reader to think about.  There is no definite decision about it that is made and she simply just says that she is fine.  You don’t know the future of the couple, you don’t know exactly what their relationship is, and you don’t even know where they are headed.  After thinking about it they clearly do not have a good enough relationship to discuss something of this magnitude and most likely don’t care about each other enough to understand what the other one wants.  She is pregnant with his child, yet he just wants it all to be over so they can go back to the frivolous lifestyle that she seems to be fed up with and ready to move on from. 

            Overall, I thought that this story was an excellent example of the iceberg style and it definitely brought up a lot to think about and discuss.  I feel by telling the story in this way, I actually thought about what was going on and took a better look at what happened than I would have had it just been outright about everything.  It is a very interesting style and although I thought it was somewhat frustrating and disturbing I thought that it was an excellent and interesting short story.