Hills Like White Elephants

I did not enjoy the short story "Hills Like White Elephants", by Enrest Hemingway. I don't know if it was the point of view, which was dramatic, the use of symbolism, or just the story as a whole that threw me off. When we started reading it in class I had no clue what was going on, I certainly didn't jump to the conclusion that the woman, named Jig, was planning on having an abortion.

The whole story goes like this;
"What did you say?"
"I said we could have everything."
"We can have everything."
"No, we can't"
"We can have the whole world."
"No, we can't"

We don't know who is speaking to whom, all we know is it's two people bickering back and forth. To me I would rather know who is talking to who, maybe it would help me understand the story a bit more. Maybe this was the style of writing back in 1927, I don't know, all I do know is I don't like it.


One of the main symbols within the story would be the hills. One is barren and dry, looks like white elephants, and the other side is lush and green. With me not knowing what the story is about, I couldn't jump to the conclusion that the one side is symbolizing a Buddhist belief and the other is symbolizing having a child. The Buddhist's believe that a white elephant is symbolic of wisdon on the eve of giving birth, which would tie in to this story and how Jig is trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion. But if you never knew this you were trying to figure out what white elephants had to do with anything, like I was trying to figure out. To make it even more confusing, when Jig went and placed her bags at the fertile side, it meant nothing to me because I didn't understand what was going on.


So I truly didn't like this story, and I'm not a person who doesn't like many stories. I just feel that I was completely thrown off by the symbolism and the way it was written as a whole.





(This is a white elephant)