Short Story: Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

 To me, this story exemplifies ‘The Iceberg Theory’ of Hemingway, more than any of his other works. (Although I love ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ with all my heart.) Hemingway’s storytelling device, ‘Iceberg Theory’, or ‘The Theory of Omission’ is what makes Hemingway’s stories as real as they are – even though they are set in a world and time far removed from our own. The theory is to not convey the motives of the characters or conflict outright at any point in the story. This has to be inferred from the subtext, dialogue, and movement. (Hemingway, when exploring this theory, apparently said, ““If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”)

Coming back to the story.

A couple is waiting for a train at a station in Spain. They sit in the waiting room and order some beers. The woman remarks that the valleys beyond the river Ebro strike her to look like white elephants. Then a conversation ensues. What’s conveyed is the man’s deflection of a taboo topic (maybe it’s abortion), the woman seeking his validation; she’s being a little needy, he’s being a little cruel. They’re trying with deep innocence to fool themselves, and maybe each other. You try to figure out that this must be an attractive couple and maybe young – young enough to think that adventures never end. The woman is reluctant to do what the man is asking her to do, but it’s okay by her – because she cares for him…or his opinion. Sometimes people are foolish enough to confuse the two.

Of course, you don’t come to know explicitly what they were talking about. The elephant in the room is really a line of mountain ranges beyond the couple’s life. And it’s white.