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Hills like White Elephants
Ernest Hemingway (1927)
The distant hills symbolize an exquisite place of escape—but these hills look like "white elephants" (an ironic detail). They remind her that consequences of the decision she faces might be costly.
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid."What should we drink?" the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table."It's pretty hot," the man said. "Let's drink beer." "Dos credenzas," the man said into the curtain."Big ones?" a woman asked from the doorway. "Yes. Two big ones." The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
Ironic symbol—the hills, traditionally a symbol of attractiveness, beauty, tranquility, appear to Jig as not having these qualities.
"They look like white elephants," she said. I've never seen one," the man drank his beer.
"No, you wouldn't have." "I might have," the man said. "Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything." The girl looked at the bead curtain. "They've painted something on it," she said. "What does it say?" "Anis Del Toro, It’s a drink." "Could we try it?" The man