A Short Essay on Ernest

Hemingway's Short Story:

Hills Like White Elephants

(authors note - but, you know,
they aren't mountains)
by Brent Duncan, duncan.brent.a@gmail.com Brent Duncan, 2013

Aw Hemingway. The manliest of the manly writers of the exploits and adventures of men, for men, and of the manliest of things. Earnest Hemingway makes Chunk Norris choke on Chuck-Norristhe-Girl tears by being so incredibly manly. Bullfights, booze, fishing, and women. Also, broken hearts. The short story 'Hills Like White Elephants' is an example of Hemingway writing in the third person, which feels strange, as most of what I have read of his seems to be to some degree autobiographical, and written in a first-person narrative. Still, this story could be auto-biographical. I conject that he may have found himself at some point in a similar situation, and acted in a similarly foolish and abusive manner, and perhaps when he came to write about it, he projected his shame into the third-person rather than owning it in the first. It is difficult to write about a work of Hemingway's and not comment, at least to some degree, on what we know of his life, and although interesting, his life will not be the main focus of this paper. Instead, we shall concentrate on the characters of the story and their dialogue, since dialogue is the breath of the plot. The plot revolves around a dysfunction between our two characters, an American man and a girl. They are sitting at a train station waiting for their ride and fueling themselves from the font of the train station bar in the middle of some hot desolate region of Spain. Beyond a river and through some trees are the hills that look like white elephants to our female character, and serve as the first plotpoint from which our couple distill the beginning of the sad argument into which the reader drops. Our female character, called Jig by the American a number of times, remarks in reference to the hills: They look like white elephants. (Hemingway, 114) He immediately refutes this simile saying that he had never seen one, and the two go on with a circuitous argument which sets the tone for the rest of their interaction, which to the reader has a similar effect as a camera-obscura: the words come in and project a scene on the back of our minds. The page is the camera. The story itself is a small part of a bigger story- a cross-section- a picture of a single moment. His refutation of her statement lends us a reading into the man's nature, and to the current status of their relationship, and this rather limited

projection gives us a clue to the bigger narrative in which this short is couched: they were lovers, having a good time, and they were nice to each other, and then he turned. His refutation of her simple statement belies a rift and an uneasiness between the two. The rift is never explained in explicit terms, yet it is quite clear to the reader. She is going to have a breast-augmentation. Perhaps her saying that the hills are like white elephants is to let the reader know that she is white, and the elephants/hills in the room are her breasts of which they dare not verbalize, lest they offend the other train-patrons (or, traintrons). Also, one could read this as 'elephants are big enough and so are my breasts'. This then would lead credence to his dismissal of her statement, which means to say 'I've never seen white elephants and maybe they aren't really big enough.' If this be the case, the whole chunk is excellent metaphor. I understand this man, but from a converse side. Some years back, an ex-girlfriend of mine told me she was not happy with herself and proceeded to inform me that she was going to have the same procedure. I have always viewed this sort of surgery as unnatural (a statement that the man in this story directly refutes ... it's all perfectly natural. (Hemingway, 115)) but absolutely appropriate in some situations, and in the end the decision is at the discretion of the female. Aesthetic surgery for the sake of a perceived self-improvement is not one of these situations, yet before I found myself in this situation, I never felt much about it. I am rather open-minded (I think) and fairly liberal-minded (not the democratic kind) but being at the receiving end of this news was a blow to me. Here was a woman who was about to destroy her natural self and I hated the idea. And I had no control. I could not talk her out of it. In this story, the man intends in no uncertain terms for her to have the surgery. The real sadness of her condition is when she states, Then I'll do it, because I don't care about me, (Hemingway, 116) indicating that her will is the opposite of his, but she is unable to see herself as separate from him, and her only choice is to follow him. This is a clear denial of self. She is not only saying she does not care about herself, she is replacing her will with his. A complete projection of his

will into herself. His future-idealism is fueling his shortsightedness. Rather than be a real man, and realize that he was happy before, he wants her to change herself for his sake. [Insert cake-having-andeating cliche here.] The story was written in 1927 and one can imagine the techniques and materials used for this surgery in those days. A quick read of breastenlargement.org on the history of breast enlargement indicates that some time in the 1920s doctors began using fat, and prior to that it was paraffin. Yet at paragraph 44 he says, ... it's just to let the air in. (Hemingway, 115) So perhaps in these times there was at least one more technique that allowed this type of body-modification: air-injection. Regardless, for him to be forceful over an elective surgery that in those days would probably be far riskier than currently, gives credence to a theory: the American is an asshole. Beyond what is being said directly and indirectly in the story, if one has read much Hemingway, they know it is difficult at times to keep track of who is doing the speaking in a dialogue, however, given these characters, their conversation is easy to follow. In current times, dialogue sections in most books spell out exactly who is doing the speaking almost no matter the length of dialogue, and in a way, that lends itself to a further stupefaction of the masses. Hemingway rarely explicitly says who is talking, rather leaving the reader to infer from some previous passage. I enjoy somewhat the game of realizing I have no idea who is talking and having to read back, generally to find that my attention span is somewhere between that of a barnacle and a face-mole. It creates neuronic-fire. To be sure, while reading Hemingway, I often-times play a drinking game. Each time his characters or narrator suggest taking a drink of booze, I follow this suggestion. Unfortunately this reduces the total amount of neuronic-fire I feel from his works, but it does put me in a good state to understand his characters, namely, drunk. If you see his characters through their eyes, then you can see why they are oftentimes such idiots. In 'Hills Like White Elephants', I only got sort-of-drunk rather than rather-drunk, and the two characters, the American and the girl, are more or less the same. The

entire story is infused with alcohol, as many of Hemingway's stories are. A little background knowledge tells us that Herr Author was an alcoholic, so it is understandable that he would infuse almost every character he ever created, or reported on, with the same unfortunate condition. Perhaps as he wrote, he would drink every time he wrote of drinking, which is sometimes several times a page, and perhaps I am closing the loop by doing the same. Jig is weak. She does not want to have the procedure, but since the man insists (although he claims he does not), she appears to plan to go through with it. Instead of simply walking away from this man, who says, I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything... (Hemingway, 115) she stays with him. Not to demonize the male character, but he really is an asshole. He tells her that he wants her to do it, and it would make them happy again, but that he does not want her to do it if she does not want to. These are two young and confused lovers. A quick search told me that this story originally appeared in a collection titled, Men Without Women. The man's behavior in this story would certainly bring that reality closer to any man. He is a weed, and unfit. Unfortunately, Jig did not see this before she gave him access to herself. She attempts to lift the mood, with jokes, and poetry, but he cannot see through his ego. He cannot perceive through his mask. His eyes are closed. He is sociopathic, and thereby indulges himself without regard to others. In his case, he would not feel but a faint twinge of guilt, if any, for forcing her hand. She is, at best, stupid. She continues trusting this man, and giving into him, regardless of herself. Her weakness may lie in her age, which is probably between 19 and 22, although given the times it could be as low as 17. The man is older. He is at least 25 but may be closer to 30, and having more life experience, gives him a leg up on her both emotionally and intellectually. She is prime for manipulation and he is more than willing to help. However, this reading does not figure in the ways she does attempt to declare herself sovereign.

Jig wants to feel well, and talking and thinking about what she is about to do does not fit this goal. She tries to change the subject. Near the end, she demands a complete respite of his conversation, but he is altogether fixated. Perhaps he is not only attempting to persuade her of the righteousness of what amounts to a decision he has made for her, but also attempting to persuade himself the same. The most interesting piece of dialogue is the exchange where Jig states that they could have everything and the American states that, in fact, they can have everything. She refutes him, where he goes on then to state that they can have the whole world. She returns saying that the world is not their's anymore, and that they cannot have everything after they take it away. (Hemingway, 116) One can only imagine that to one whose body is about to be changed at the whim of another, the world for such a one suddenly becomes her physical self, and since the world is now her body, and that body is about to be altered, at his behest, then her world is to be taken away, and he will have been the one to take it. Her character is a dreamer, an idealist. He is also an idealist, but his idealism rests in the future, postprocedure, and her idealism rests in the now, where things could be perfect were he a different type of person. I am not sure whether she sees herself as integral to the story. She is living beyond, in a world where she is not real. In an attempt to forget what is about to happen she has shut off her senses. She is essentially at the beginning of a dreaming, like one who inhabits a utopic imagining after a trauma or abuse, and to be sure, he lays on the abuse. She is not happy, and cannot be happy, and will not be happy, because her partner is not, and once the procedure is through he assures her that they will be happy again. Somewhere along the path to this excerpt of their relationship he stops being able to let her be herself, physically or otherwise, until his needs, wants, and expectations are met, but somewhere deep down, perhaps hidden, they know this is a slippery slope. Perhaps the most depressing line in the story is the last. The man has gone to move their bags closer to where the train is coming, bringing the inevitable journey to hell closer to her, and he goes in

for a drink. When he comes out and meets her again he asks, Do you feel better? to which she replies, I feel fine. There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine. (Hemingway, 117) At this point, her character is absolutely transparent, almost invisibly so, for he is at once successful, for she has become an extension of him. She is not fine. She has settled fully into his will. She will have larger breasts, and her heart will be broken.

Works Cited Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. "Hemingway, Ernest: Hills Like White Elephants." The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2011. 113-17. Print. "BreastEnlargement - American Breast Enlargement Association." History of Breast Enlargement. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. <http://www.breastenlargement.org/research-and-news/history-ofbreast-enlargement.html>.