Sample Essay on "Hills Like White Elephants"

Bueno 1 Guadalupe Reyes Bueno Professor Allen Loibner-Waitkus Composition II 22 March 2026 Below the Iceberg: Symbolism in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” relies on a sparse style and understated dialogue to explore the emotional tension between a man and a woman waiting at a Spanish train station. Rather than directly naming the central conflict—whether the woman should undergo an abortion—Hemingway constructs the narrative through symbolic imagery embedded in the setting, objects, and landscape. The hills, the contrast between fertile and barren land, the train station itself, and the drinks the characters consume all function as symbols that reveal the deeper emotional and moral stakes of the conversation. Through these carefully chosen details, Hemingway communicates the characters’ inner conflict and the imbalance in their relationship while maintaining the minimalist style that characterizes his fiction. The most prominent symbol in the story appears in the title itself: the white elephants. Early in the conversation, the woman, Jig, looks toward the distant hills and remarks that they “look like white elephants” (186). The American initially responds dismissively, saying he has never seen one, and Jig replies that he probably would not