
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” was published in 1927 and explores many arguable concepts still evident today. These include abortion, women’s rights and commitment. The story is an extremely broad conversation between an American man and his significant other, Jig, at a train station in Spain awaiting a train to Madrid. He is pressuring her to undergo an operation, which he plays down as no big deal. The two dance around the subject and never truly address the problem or come up with a plan. In the end she explains she is fine, but the reader does not know what the woman decides to do about this operation, which is interpreted to be an abortion, or what will happen next in their relationship. Through deep interpretation and analyzing the historical context, we can get a clearer understanding as to why the American man has succumbed to Spanish culture, the true fears of abortion he may be trying to soften, and the contradiction of gender norms. 

Ernest Hemingway has written numerous short stories, many of which arguably reflect his experiences with war as an ambulance driver in Italy during WWI (“Ernest Hemingway Biography” 2). Although he was well known for his fiction writing, Thomas Putnam describes his war writing as revolutionary as well (Putnam 1). The story takes place in Spain and was published in 1927, only nine years after the end of World War I. 


Spain remained neutral during the war, providing France and it’s allies (including America) with goods to help them succeed in war (McEvoy 1).  Knowing this information is helpful, for it provides an explanation on why the man acts how he does in the story.

The man in “Hills Like White Elephants” is very assimilated in the Spanish culture. He understands Spanish, local transportation, artwork and Spanish cultural norms. With this information, one can assume that he has been there for a while, for he can fluently communicate with their Spanish-speaking waitress in the story. His lifestyle is described by the woman as consisting of drinking, looking at art, and traveling. This shows he has a very lavish lifestyle with no commitment or huge sense of responsibility. Knowing this, it is extremely interesting to explore the reasons why the American man is so comfortable with the Spanish culture. 

With Spain being neutral during the war, could it be that the man was an American soldier who went to Spain after or during the war to avoid going back to the states? This theory, suggested by Margaret D Bauer in an article titled “Forget the Legend and Read the Work: Teaching Two Stories by Ernest Hemingway,” could explain why the man does not want his lover to have a baby. Perhaps he feared the commitment that would come with a child: the need to move back to the states, settle down, get married, raise a baby, the inevitable end of his current lifestyle. Margaret D. Bauer explores this suggestion, and finds that when this interpretation is taken on in the text the man is viewed in much less of a negative light (Bauer 4). The idea of a man being a soldier who is not ready to take on the life of a committed man could help explain why he tries to view the abortion as no big deal. He does not want to change his life even though he does love the woman, so he tries to convince himself and her that the procedure is not risky and that doing so will allow them to go back to “normal,” or his original lifestyle before the pregnancy. Without knowledge of the war and the idea of him being a retired soldier it is extremely difficult to sympathize with the man trying to push Jig to have an abortion. 

During this time, men were the gender who received most educational opportunities. However, in the story the American man is very naïve when discussing abortion. In “Hills Like White Elephants” he tells Jig that in the abortion procedure, “they just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural” and that afterwards they would be, “just like [they] were before” (Hemingway 3). The reader, however, gets the sense that the woman is aware of the risks the procedure has. Today abortion can be a risky operation but years ago it was even worse. Abortion in Europe in the 1920s had legal, medical, and religious limitations and consequences. So this makes the reader sympathize with Jig.

Legally in the 1920s many countries in Europe followed England’s “severe restrictions on the performance of abortion at any stage of pregnancy” (David 3). This article is called “Abortion in Europe, 1920-91: A Public Health Perspective” and it discusses many of the risks that occurred with abortion. The article writes about the many reasons leading government to deem various, strict constraints on the procedure in order to help protect the health of the pregnant women. Not only were there legal affects but also religious and medical ones. All of which are completely ignored or unknown by the American man in the story. 

Additionally, the same article written by David P. Henry, discusses some of the religious restraints as well. He writes that before 1869 there was much debate about abortion in the church community, until 1869, when Pope Pius IX “eliminated any distinction between a formed and unformed fetus (David 3).” This resulted in a movement of viewing abortion not as the murder of the fetus. Then, however, in 1895 the Roman Catholic power responsively condemned abortion. This meant that the religious community saw women as murdering their fetus if they had an abortion, an act that would be punished by God. (David 3)

On the other hand, the procedure also had vast medical risks in the 1920s. The procedure used “vacuum aspiration,” and was passed throughout Europe in the 1920s. One year before the story was published, Europe passed a law stating that people who had abortions could end up with a legal sentence from one day to five years and the service preforming the procedure could face one to fifteen years. It states that during this time post operation infections were very common and many people even died from them; one out of three operations in European hospitals resulted in death during this time. (David 3) Additionally, it said, that many doctor’s forged “abortionist” roles, resulting in dangerous procedures with unequipped doctors, undoubtedly increasing the risks on woman. (David 3)

In the story, the “educated” male overlooks all these hazardous factors that could affect him and his lovers lives. Knowing the information about abortions makes it extremely difficult to take the very broad conversation in the story lightly. By making the man either truly naïve about the surgery or having him come across as downplaying it, Hemingway is touching on the reversed or standard gender expectations present in the story. In the 19th century both Europe and North America had understood gender roles. Men were expected to live publicly, working and socializing with other men in public places. On the other hand, women were expected to live at home, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children. Due to these expectations, many women did not get an education, for doing so was seen as rebellious and wrong. (Sailus 1). 

Although there seems to be a sense that the man is giving Jig an option, when looked at closer he is not. He says things like, “but I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to” which give a sense of choice. However, he uses “I” and “you” as if to separate them if she does decide not to. He does not use “we” which signifies that they are in it together unless he is talking about going through with the abortion. This signifies that there can be no “we” if she does not get the abortion. On the other hand, when he talks about getting the abortion he tells her, “we’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before” (Hemingway 3).  On the other hand, the American’s intelligence could be questioned as he describes the surgery as no big deal to his lover. Whether he truly believes this or not, Hemingway is touching on the idea of whether he is truly smarter than or better than the woman. 

All in all, through analyzing the significance of the story taking place in Spain, we can argue that he is an American soldier who moved there to dismiss the expectations he’d be required to live up to back in the states. This gives the reader a different perspective of his push to get his lover to get an abortion. However, this perspective still does not allow much sympathy to be held towards the man, as he ignores all the different religious, legal, and health threats that the procedure had in the 1920s across Europe. Finally, Hemingway touches on the social norms expected from men and women in both America and Europe when the story was published. The woman is probable to follow the man’s wishes, as this was her developed role. At the end of the story, the woman shakes the subject off with a smile, and we can assume that she is going to go through with the procedure, because that is what her lover wants her to do. 

 