Hemingway’s Hill’s Like White Elephants is undoubtedly a product of its time. However, the story manages to cleverly discuss issues that were not only considered offensive, but also potentially illegal all around the world. The central issue of the story is whether or not Jig will get the abortion she appears to desire. This desire puts her at odds with her boyfriend, known only as The American. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hill’s Like White Elephants, abortion is not only taboo because of poor medical treatment, but also because of women’s powerlessness to control their own bodies in the time period in which the story is set, the 1920s.

Hemingway’s choice of location is very interesting in the context of this story. Beginning in 1923, Spain was transformed by the Sexual Reform Movement. Inspired by Freudian psychology, this movement focused on erasing gender inequality, legalizing abortion, and allowing both men and women to initiate divorce proceedings. Of course, these widespread changes were met with a lot of resistance by those satisfied with the status quo, and as a result the goals of the movement were more conservative when compared to other countries undergoing similar changes. In Hills Like White Elephants, Jig and the American are having a child, but there is no evidence that they are married. This awkward ambiguity is an important aspect of their relationship. They are only referred to as “The American and the girl with him” (527). Like abortion, having a child out of a wedlock was similarly taboo, and Hemingway dances around both the subjects of wedlock and abortion expertly. The movement in Spain was, “stimulated in particular by the writings of Havelock, Ellis, and Sigmund Freud” (71). It is no stretch to imagine that Hemingway had similar dreams, to influence social change with his writings. 

Despite the changes going on in Spain, the world in which Hemingway wrote Hills Like White Elephants was still very much unequal. This is reflected in how Hemingway portrayed the interactions between the American, the girl, and the world around them. 

 In Ernest Hemingway’s Hill’s Like White Elephants, abortion is not only taboo because of poor medical treatment, but also because of women’s powerlessness to control their own bodies in the time period in which the story is set, the 1920s.
