Interpretations of

Hills Like White Elephants

The woman in the story realizes a lot about her husband in the story. He got her pregnant and they were deciding on having an abortion or not to have an abortion. Ernest Hemingway sort of hid this in his story. He does not say in his story that they are talking about an abortion and if the reader does not catch this the story does not make much sense.

In the story the woman notices that every time they start to fight the husband gets her a drink. The husband wants his wife to get the abortion and he keeps saying, Well if you don t want to you don t have to. I wouldn t have you do it if you didn t want to. But I know it s perfectly simple (344). This is a perfect example of his opinion on having an abortion. He thinks that the operation is very simple and he keeps trying to convince her to get it.

The woman in the story also realizes that on one side of the train station the land is all dead and dried up and on the other side of the station were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadows of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees. (345). This is what her life feels like to her at that moment. She can go one way and be happy or go the other way and make her husband happy and she would be miserable.

One of the other things that she realizes is her decision of having the abortion. She decides that she does not want to have the abortion. She does not say this but she has made up her mind that she is going to have the baby. She said I feel fine, there is nothing wrong with me. I feel fine (346).

The overall thing that she realizes about her husband is that he does not want the baby and he wants her to have the abortion. She also realizes that he likes to change the subject when things do not go his way, like getting her a drink.