Hills Like White Elephants

Hills Like White Elephants is interesting in that it is told almost entirely through dialogue, within which the topic of conversation is never actually named. Since our discussion last week, I have been much more consciously aware of the presence of authors in their writing, particularly fiction writing. In this story, I sense Hemingway's presence very strongly in the way that he manipulates the our perceptions of the events. The title in particular is a beautiful and striking line, a simile that I expected to be revealed in Hemingway's narration of the setting. In fact, it is said by the woman, and turns out to be of little importance, on the surface.

"The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

‘They look like white elephants,’ she said.

‘I’ve never seen one,’ the man drank his beer.

‘No, you wouldn’t have.’"

Coming after Hemingway's characteristically minimal description of the hills, the girl's observation seems like a comment on Hemingway's narration. In fact, "hills like white elephants" is obviously Hemingway's own simile that he situated in the mouth of this girl, almost it seems so that he did not have to accept responsibility for the self-conscious writerliness of the line. The girl is entirely self-conscious when she says this, as is revealed later in her indignation at the man's response, "‘All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn’t that bright?’

‘That was bright.’"

In the situation of this line, we sense Hemingway's presence, as well as in his very minimal descriptions that are just enough to set the scene. Hemingway's simple, low style, feels very mannered and unnatural, but allows the subtlety of the subject matter to come through.

By telling the story mainly through dialogue, Hemingway sets up a dynamic in which the reader is voyeur to the conversation between the couple. Giving us just enough evocative detail to set the scene, Hemingway places us in the middle of this overheard conversation and refuses to interpret it for us. This story is entirely about what is not said, both between the couple in the world of the story, and stylistically in the writing of it.

Rewriting of Hemingway in high style:

The girl narrowed her eyes against the haze of heat toward the hills, starkly white like starched sheets spread over tall humps of dry brown country.

"They look like white elephants," she said.

"I've never seen one," the man said swallowing his words with the cold and salty beer.

"No, you wouldn't have," she mused, to the battered edge of counter where her elbow trailed. She had never seen a white elephant either, but imagined they would be as anomalous in this landscape as a sensitive word from her manfriend. The licorice sweetness choked its way through her languid limbs, falling to the pit of her stomach, where it sucked at her until the air was gone.