The Relationship In Hills Like White Elephants

Neglecting to acknowledge something one finds unwanted in a relationship, is often a result of other issues in the relationship itself, as shown in “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. With the lack of descriptions in general, the description of the train station and the hills that are seen from there catches the attention of the reader. This creates the question; what importance can there be found in the setting and the metaphor white elephants?
The first conversation the American and the woman have is when the woman gives an off-hand remark on some hills nearby. According to the woman the hills, “‘Look like white elephants,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen one’, the man drank his beer.” (p 1) This remark the woman gives, which seems rather random at first, acts like a pivot to talk about an issue. However, the man's response to her remark is an indication that the comparison of the hills and the white elephants are only the tip of the iceberg to the predicaments in the relationship. White elephants can be understood as two things: the first one is a

According to the narrator, “The girl was looking off at the lines of the hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.” (p1), which indicates that the setting is a reflection on the state of the relationship between the American and the woman. Since the narrator describes the hills as being white while the rest of the surroundings are brown, it creates a metaphor for how obvious and destructive white elephants can be in the relationship. The train station is also a metaphor for the journey through life. According to the text, “the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.” (p1) thereby, emphasises that the two characters are not each other’s final destination, and the time for departing is inevitably approaching