When I first began reading “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, I immediately noticed how it started with a rather detailed description of where the story was taking place which was somewhere warm and dry. As I continued reading, I realized it was in Spain somewhere because of the mention of Barcelona and Madrid. Hemingway wanted to slip in the fact that he spent much of his time there. The story started with an American man and a girl which seemed innocent enough. However, when she asked if they could drink beer, I found it a little odd since Hemingway specifically said girl and not woman which in my mind made me think that she was younger. It was clear that this story was going to be structured in a mostly dialogue fashion between the man and the girl and with a few interjections by the lady selling the alcohol. As the story progressed, I couldn’t shake the fact that all they were talking about were alcoholic drinks and in my mind I wanted to say get to the point! The girl had mentioned the white hills in the distance looking like white elephants which is a totally acceptable conclusion to draw since they’re big, round, and kind of bulge into the sky. Then when the man starts talking about a simple operation I then understood what the little biography about Hemingway was saying and how this text was a cleverly disguised story about abortion. The white elephants reference then made more sense because when women are pregnant they usually consider themselves feeling like giant elephants. However this also made me think that the abortion issue was kind of the big elephant in the room that everyone knew was there but no one wanted to say anything about it. The man and the girl were going back and forth about whether she should go through with this and talked about the fact that if they did, they would be much happier afterwards. I felt sad because I believe that babies should be given a chance to experience this world but happiness of course takes many different forms and they may well be happier. What struck me after reading this story was when the man said that he didn’t want to have the baby and that she should go through with the abortion because he didn’t want to have anyone else but her. That was just such a “really? oh come on” moment to me. It’s nice that she responds by basically telling him to shut up and drop it. I noticed throughout the story that she was the one that was excessively drinking the alcohol asking to try a new drink or if they could order more beers. This made me feel that she intentionally wanted to harm the baby on her own because of course pregnancy and alcohol don’t mix. At the end of the story she says “I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.” I’m not certain but I feel that she said that because either the alcohol really got to her and thus the baby or she knew she was going to go through with the abortion.
couldn’t help but think throughout reading this story the influence of alcohol. i love Glee so i had to put this rendition in. Yep they were all hungover when performing.
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