Yewon Kang

Professor Eggenschwiler
ENGL 190
13 April, 2016
The Meanings of the Hills
In Hills Like White Elephants, the storyline is built up through the conversations of
two main characters, a girl named Jig and an American man. The narrator does not concretely
reveal their emotions, and readers can figure out the meanings of their talk and guess their
feelings by their dialogues and context. Among the possible clues, the hills, which are also on
the title, develop an ambivalent atmosphere throughout the story. They are the backgrounds
of the story, and at the same time, they help readers to understand characters emotional
conflicts and the situation that they are in.
The story begins with description of the hills across the valley of the Ebro. It is
depicted not only as long and white, but also as the place with no shade and no trees,
which seems empty and deserted. The barrenness of the hills stands out more boldly against
the following sentence that illustrates the warm shadow in the side of the station. The
contrast between the hills and the shade is also shown in brightness, as the shade is dark,
while the hills are white, which means light. With this background of the hills, the American
man and Jig the girl are sitting in the shade. From the view of contrast, it is reasonable to
assume that the backgrounds and the situation of the characters are contrasting as well, and as
the story goes on, the hills are more distinctly connected to the state that they are in.
After ordering beer in the bar, Jig looks at the white dry hills and talks about them to
the man. She compares the hills with white elephants. However, the man seems to be
unpleasant about her opinion. He does not sympathize with her, responding to her, Ive
never seen one. The girl talks about the hills once more, as if she wants to share her view

with the man on the metaphor she uses, but he answers coldly again. In addition, the hills
produce an atmosphere of conflicts between Jig and the American man, since they have
opposing feelings about the hills.
Certainly, following this conversation, the argument between Jig and the American
man begins to arise, as the man starts talking about the operation that the girl is going to have.
He tries to persuade her to be operated on by telling her that it is an awfully simple
operation, and he even says, It is not operation at all. It is obvious that he overstates
simplicity, as the man keeps telling and convincing her that the operation is not a big deal.
The girl shows that she does not agree with him by looking at the ground and not responding
to him. In this point, her gaze to the ground also hints that she starts to think deeply about the
operation and about their relationship, as she asks him after this, Then what will we do
afterward? It means that she thinks about how their relationship is going to be when looking
at the ground, and it also tells readers that she is afraid that the relationship would not be the
same after the operation.
However, even though the same topic, the operation, continuously dominates their
conversation, it does not show what exactly the operation is. It leads readers to guess what it
is through the clues in the story, and the absolute evidences are the hills. Jig and the American
man are looking at the landscapes of the hills, which have rounded shape, and they are
continuously talking about the operation. It makes readers connect the dome-shape of the
hills with the operation, and it suggests that the operation is abortion, as the shape symbolizes
pregnant womans belly. In other words, it implies that Jig is now pregnant, and the man
convinces her to have abortion, which also suggests that he does not want a baby.
While the American man repeats the same subject which is the operation that Jig is
faced, she repetitively talks about the hills to the man. After her view was neglected by him
firstly, she changes her mind to say that the hills are lovely, but they dont really look like

white elephants. Then, her opinion is ignored again, as the man does not respond to her and
immediately changes the topic by ordering another drink. Although the conflicts keep going
on between Jig and the man, she does not stop talking about the hills. When she wants to
confirm that he would still love her after being operated on, she brings up the hills again,
saying, If I say things are like white elephants, and youll like it? In the respect of
connection between the hills and her situation, she seems that she wants to get his positive
responses about her pregnancy by repeatedly mentioning about the hills.
After some arguments, walking to the end of the station, Jig sees the other side of the
hills, which is different from the barren hills that she saw at the bar. There were fields of
grain and trees. It is apparent that they seem more fertile comparing to the hills on the
beginning of the story. It stands for the bright side of the hills which is full of vitality, and
also, the bright side of her pregnancy. Then, she says we could have all this, to the man,
which implies that she expresses her regret for coming incident that she would not carry the
pregnancy. Even though the man says, We can have the whole world, it does not seem that
he reveals his true feelings, since he wants her to have an abortion. What is significant here in
the text is that only the girl sees the lighter side of the hills, while the man does not. It means
that she alone takes a positive view of her pregnancy. Later, the man says, Come back in the
shade, which seems that he lets her not to see the bright side and takes her to consider the
abortion.
It is evident that the American man repeats and stresses that he does not want the girl
to have operation if she does not want to only to justify his persuasion, and therefore, the girl
tells him to stop talking. Then again, she looks at the hills, but the hills on the dry side of the
valley, not the fertile side. Through this scene, the readers can see she is almost persuaded
regardless of her will after arguing with the man, as the dry side of the hills implies no lives,
which contrasts to pregnancy.

To conclude, the hills are not only the title or landscapes, but they constantly give the
readers significant meanings throughout the whole story by revealing their opposite sides.
Therefore, even though the story does not show whether she will be operated or not, it is
assumable for readers to guess that she would have operation, since she says I feel fine, at
the end. However, here, she does not look actually fine, and it seems that she tries to feel fine,
because she has decided to follow him and have the abortion. It becomes more apparent that
she would abort her child, as the hills do not show up again until the end of the story, which
suggests that she no longer looks at the hills, and that she does not think about the pregnancy
anymore.