In a story the environment and setting play a key role in developing the character’s thoughts. The setting of Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” gives the reader a sense of the characters actions and emotions with the use of mood, symbolism and the meaning of the story’s title. The setting of this story establishes the overall mood of this piece. Hemingway sets the story in Spain at a train station on a very hot day. The train station is an empty valley. In the story, the side of the valley which the American and Jig are on has “…no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun” (Hemingway 203). This makes the reader feel the emptiness and loneliness of the surroundings. The characters are in an uncomfortable situation and the reader can sense this from the description of the surroundings. The uncomfortable situation the characters are facing is the decision of whether to have an abortion. The uneasy feeling is also present in the characters relationship. They do not seem like they have a happy relationship and the American seems to not care about the abortion. The American appears to come across as impolite when he says, “Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything”, he says this when they are talking about the white hills (Hemingway 204). When they are talking about the abortion, the American says, “Its really an awfully simple operation” (Hemingway 205).
This makes it seem like he does not care and he does not want the baby. The setting of this story symbolizes decision making. The American and Jig are at a train station waiting for a train from one city to get to another. The train station represents being in between two options and only having a certain amount of time to decide. The story states that the train stops for two minutes and then goes on. The element of time is also evident in the option of abortion because there is only a certain amount of time before it is too late. The American and Jig know they have to make a decision and cannot stay at the station forever. The story begins by describing the setting and says that the train “stopped at the junction for two minutes and went on to Madrid” (Hemingway 203). Also, the bartender says, “the train comes in five minutes” and there is a decision to be made on where to go next therefore, things will change (Hemingway 207). The passengers at the train station have very little time when the train comes to decide if they want to go and to be ready. Again, this shows the element of time as the characters have a limit on the decision of the abortion. The title “Hills Like White Elephants” relates to the environment of the story. While the American and Jig are at the train station, “the girl was looking off at line of hills” then says, “they look like white elephants” (Hemingway 204). The girl has the baby on her mind because the hills make her think of her pregnancy. A white elephant represents something no one wants. Sometimes people do not plan to get pregnant and it surprises them. They have an important decision to make about how a pregnancy will affect their life. It seems as though Jig would rather not have the abortion. She says, “…once they take it away, you never get it back” (Hemingway 206). The girl is saying once the abortion is done, the pregnancy is over and there is no way of getting that life back. The American seems to be pushing Jig to go ahead with the abortion. Eventually she says, “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway 206). It seems as though Jig is agreeing with the American just to get him to stop talking about the abortion. Even though, Jig seems to want to keep the baby, she is willing to go ahead with the abortion if it is what the American wants. The mood sensed in the story is an uncomfortable one, which is developed through the surroundings the characters are present in. The train station is a symbol of decision making and represents being in between two options and having a time limit, which relates to Jig and the American’s decision about the abortion. The title of the story relates to the environment as Jig compares the hills to white elephants, which represent an item that no body cares for. Hemingway made a good choice in the use of setting in the classic story “Hills Like White Elephants” to give the reader a sense of the character’s actions and emotions with the effective use of mood, symbolism and the title. This is one of the reasons why Hemingway’s pieces of work are still read and enjoyed by many today.