Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. He showed an early talent for writing and began his career as a reporter after leaving home. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver in Italy where he was injured. This experience inspired his novel A Farewell to Arms. Throughout his life, Hemingway struggled with depression and alcoholism. He took his own life in 1961 at the age of 61.

1. Reporters:
Pet Erachne P. Gloria
Glaiza Q. Magriña

3. BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
Ernest Hemingway
 Ernest Miller Hemingway was
born on July 21, 1899, the second
of six children, and spent his
early years in Oak Park, a suburb
of Chicago. Both his mother and
father were active members of
the First Congregational Church
and ran a strict household.

4.  All their children were required to abstain
from any enjoyment on Sundays, for
example, and were strictly punished for
any disobedience. Hemingway later
condemned them for their distinctly
middle-class values and oppressive sense
of morality.
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR

5.  Intelligent and an avid nature lover, Hemingway
demonstrated a clear talent for writing from a
young age. In fact, he published his first literary
work at age seventeen. His father encouraged him
to attend college after finishing high school, but
Hemingway wanted to enter the army or become a
writer.
 When his father refused to allow him to enlist,
Hemingway left home and began reporting for the
Kansas City Star.
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR

6.  Hemingway began to hone his now-famous
literary style during his years as a reporter.
His editors instructed him to write short,
factual sentences without too many
negatives to deliver the facts in his articles.
He later incorporated this writing style into
his own fiction writing.
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR

7.  Hemingway soon grew restless and left
the Star to serve in the Red Cross, where
he worked as an ambulance driver in
Europe during World War I. While
recovering from a knee injury in a hospital
in Milan, he fell in love with a nurse
named Agnes von Kurosky. Although their
relationship didn’t last, he based his novel
A Farewell To Arms (1929) on their
romance.
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR

8.  Despite his success, Hemingway struggled
with depression and alcoholism for most of
his adult life. Many critics claim that his
writing deteriorated after World War II,
when his mental and physical health took
a turn for the worse. He died in the
summer of 1961 from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound at age sixty-one.
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR

10. The American
 The male protagonist of the story. The
American never reveals his name, nor does
the girl ever directly address him by name.
He is determined to convince the girl to
have the operation but tries to appear as
though he doesn’t care what she does. He
remains disconnected from his
surroundings, not really understanding or
even listening to what the girl has to say.
CHARACTERS

11. CHARACTERS
The Girl
 The female protagonist of the story. The
American calls the girl “Jig” at one point in the
story but never mentions her real name. Unlike
the American, the girl is less sure of what she
wants and appears reluctant to have the
operation in question. She alternates between
wanting to talk about the operation and wanting
to avoid the topic altogether.

12. CHARACTERS
The Bartender
 The woman serving drinks to the
American man and the girl. The bartender
speaks only Spanish.

14. ANALYSIS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS
The American
 Throughout the story, the American behaves
according to Hemingway’s rigid conception of
masculinity. Hemingway portrays the American
as a rugged man’s man—knowledgeable,
worldly, and always in control of himself and
the situation at hand.
 Even when vexed or confused, he maintains his
cool and feigns indifference, such as when he
tells the girl he doesn’t care whether she has
the operation.

15. ANALYSIS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS
The American
 He initially avoids discussion of their problems,
but when pressured, he tackles them head on
by oversimplifying the operation and
relentlessly pushing her to have it. Thinking
himself to be the more reasonable of the two,
he patronizes the girl and fails to provide the
sympathy and understanding she needs during
the crisis.

16. ANALYSIS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS
The American
 Uncompromising, he seems to identify
more with the other passengers “waiting
reasonably” at the station than with his
own girlfriend at the end of the story,
which suggests that the two will go their
separate ways.

17. ANALYSIS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS
The Girl
 Compared to the American, Hemingway’s overly
masculine character, the girl is less assertive and
persuasive. Throughout the story, the girl appears
helpless, confused, and indecisive.
 She changes her mind about the attractiveness of
the surrounding hills, for example; claims to
selflessly care only for the American; and seems
uncertain about whether she wants to have the
operation. In fact, the girl can’t even order drinks
from the bartender on her own without having to
rely on the man’s ability to speak Spanish.

18. ANALYSIS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS
The Girl
 Ironically, the girl seems to understand that her
relationship with the American has effectively
ended, despite her professed desire to make
him happy. She knows that even if she has the
operation, their relationship won’t return to
how it used to be.
 In many ways, the girl’s realization of this fact
gives her power over the American, who never
really understands why they still can’t have
“the whole world” like they once did.

20.  Hemingway sets “Hills Like White
Elephants” at a train station to highlight
the fact that the relationship between the
American man and the girl is at a
crossroads. Planted in the middle of a
desolate valley, the station isn’t a final
destination but merely a stopping point
between Barcelona and Madrid.
SETTING

22. “Hills Like White Elephants” opens with a
long description of the story’s setting in a
train station surrounded by hills, fields, and
trees in a valley in Spain. A man known
simply as the American and his girlfriend sit
at a table outside the station, waiting for a
train to Madrid.
EXPOSITION

23.  They order more drinks, and the American
mentions that he wants the girl, whom he
calls “Jig,” to have an operation, although
he never actually specifies what kind of
operation. He seems agitated and tries to
downplay the operation’s seriousness. He
argues that the operation would be
simple, for example, but then says the
procedure really isn’t even an operation at
all.
CRISIS

24.  The girl says nothing for a while, but then
she asks what will happen after she’s had the
operation. The man answers that things will
be fine afterward, just like they were before,
and that it will fix their problems. He says he
has known a lot of people who have had the
operation and found happiness afterward.
The girl dispassionately agrees with him. The
American then claims that he won’t force her
to have the operation but thinks it’s the best
course of action to take. She tells him that
she will have the operation as long as he’ll
still love her and they’ll be able to live
happily together afterward.
CLIMAX

25.  The man then emphasizes how much he
cares for the girl, but she claims not to care
about what happens to herself. The American
weakly says that she shouldn’t have the
operation if that’s really the way she feels.
The girl then walks over to the end of the
station, looks at the scenery, and wonders
aloud whether they really could be happy if
she has the operation. They argue for a while
until the girl gets tired and makes the
American promise to stop talking.
DENOUMENT

26.  The Spanish bartender brings two more beers
and tells them that the train is coming in five
minutes. The girl smiles at the bartender but has
to ask the American what she said because the
girl doesn’t speak Spanish. After finishing their
drinks, the American carries their bags to the
platform and then walks back to the bar, noticing
all the other people who are also waiting for the
train. He asks the girl whether she feels better.
She says she feels fine and that there is nothing
wrong with her.
ENDING

28. Man vs. Man
Man vs. Himself
CONFLICT

30. Third Person Limited Point
of View
POINT OF VIEW

32. Talking vs. Communicating
 Although “Hills Like White Elephants” is primarily
a conversation between the American man and
his girlfriend, neither of the speakers truly
communicates with the other, highlighting the rift
between the two. Both talk, but neither listens or
understands the other’s point of view.
 Frustrated and placating, the American man will
say almost anything to convince his girlfriend to
have the operation, which, although never
mentioned by name, is understood to be an
abortion.
THEME

33.  He tells her he loves her, for example, and
that everything between them will go
back to the way it used to be. The girl,
meanwhile, waffles indecisively, at one
point conceding that she’ll have the
abortion just to shut him up. When the
man still persists, she finally begs him to
“please, please, please, please, please,
please” stop talking, realizing the futility
of their conversation.
THEME

35. Drinking
 Both the American man and the girl drink alcohol
throughout their conversation to avoid each
other and the problems with their relationship.
They start drinking large beers the moment they
arrive at the station as if hoping to fill their free
time with anything but discussion. Then, as soon
as they begin talking about the hills that look like
white elephants, the girl asks to order more
drinks to put off the inevitable conversation
about the baby.
MOTIF

37. White Elephants
 A white elephant symbolizes something
no one wants—in this story, the girl’s
unborn child. The girl’s comment in the
beginning of the story that the
surrounding hills look like white elephants
initially seems to be a casual, offhand
remark, but it actually serves as a segue
for her and the American to discuss their
baby and the possibility of having an
abortion.
SYMBOL

38. White Elephants
 The girl later retracts this comment with
the observation that the hills don’t really
look like white elephants, a subtle hint
that perhaps she wants to keep the baby
after all—a hint the American misses. In
fact, she even says that the hills only
seemed to look like white elephants at
first glance, and that they’re actually
quite lovely.
SYMBOL

40. Abortion in our society;
and
Drinking liquors in
encountering such
problems
CULTURAL IMPLICATION

42.  Many first-time readers read “Hills Like White
Elephants” as nothing more than a casual
conversation between two people waiting for
a train and therefore miss the unstated
dramatic tension lurking between each line.
As a result, many people don’t realize that
the two are actually talking about having an
abortion and going their separate ways, let
alone why the story was so revolutionary for
its time.
THE ICEBERG THEORY AND HEMINGWAY’S STYLE

43.  In accordance with his so-called Iceberg
Theory, Hemingway stripped everything but
the bare essentials from his stories and
novels, leaving readers to sift through the
remaining dialogue and bits of narrative on
their own. Just as the visible tip of an iceberg
hides a far greater mass of ice underneath
the ocean surface, so does Hemingway’s
dialogue belie the unstated tension between
his characters. In fact, Hemingway firmly
believed that perfect stories conveyed far
more through subtext than through the
actual words written on the page. The more a
writer strips away, the more powerful the
“iceberg,” or story, becomes.
THE ICEBERG THEORY AND HEMINGWAY’S STYLE