Hills Like white elephants - wikipedia Hills Like white elephants `` Hills Like White Elephants '' Author Ernest Hemingway Country United States Language English Genre ( s ) short story Published in Men Without Women Publication type short story collection Publication date 1927 Preceded by `` In Another Country '' Followed by `` The Killers '' This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. ( October 2015 ) `` Hills Like White Elephants '' is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was first published in August 1927, in the literary magazine transition, then later in the 1927 short story collection Men Without Women. Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Dialogue 3 References 4 Sources Synopsis The story focuses on a conversation between an American man and a woman at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid. The woman compares the nearby hills to white elephants. The pair indirectly discuss an `` operation '' that the man apparently wants the woman to have, which is implied to be an abortion. Dialogue `` They look like white elephants, '' she said. `` I 've never seen one, '' the man drank his beer. `` No, you would n't have. '' `` I might have, '' the man said. `` Just because you say I would n't have does n't prove anything. '' The girl looked at the bead curtain. `` They 've painted something on it, '' she said. `` What does it say ? '' `` Anis del Toro. It 's a drink. '' `` Could we try it ? '' The reader must interpret their dialogue and body language to infer their backgrounds and their attitudes with respect to the situation at hand, and their attitudes toward one another. From the outset of the story, the contentious nature of the couple 's conversation indicates resentment and unease. Some critics have written that the dialogue is a distillation of the contrasts between stereotypical male and female relationship roles : in the excerpt above, for instance, the woman draws the comparison with white elephants, but the hyper - rational male immediately denies it, dissolving the bit of poetry into objective realism with `` I 've never seen one. '' By saying, `` No, you would n't have '' she implies he had n't had a child before, or had n't allowed birth in the past. She also asks his permission to order a drink. Throughout the story, the woman is distant ; the American is rational. There may be more serious problems with the relationship than the purely circumstantial. While most critics have espoused relatively straightforward interpretations of the dialogue, a few have argued for alternate scenarios. References Jump up ^ http://foxhonorsenglish10.wikispaces.com/file/view/Hills+Like+White+Elephants+criticism2.pdf Jump up ^ `` Hills Like White Elephants : Plot Overview ''. SparkNotes. Retrieved 29 March 2015. Jump up ^ Smiley, P. `` Gender - linked Miscommunication in ' Hills Like White Elephants. ' '' Hemingway Review, Fall 1988. Vol. 8 No. 1. p. 2 Jump up ^ Renner, S. `` Moving to the Girl 's ( sic ) Side of ' Hills Like White Elephants. ' '' Hemingway Review, Fall 1995. Vol. 15 No. 1. p. 27 Sources Berryman, John Dream Song 14 `` The tranquil hills & gin '' Mellow, James R. ( 1992 ). Hemingway : A Life Without Consequences. New York : Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0 - 395 - 37777 - 3. Ernest Hemingway Bibliography Novels The Torrents of Spring ( 1926 ) The Sun Also Rises ( 1926 ) A Farewell to Arms ( 1929 ) To Have and Have Not ( 1937 ) For Whom the Bell Tolls ( 1940 ) Across the River and into the Trees ( 1950 ) The Old Man and the Sea ( 1952 ) Non-fiction Death in the Afternoon ( 1932 ) Green Hills of Africa ( 1935 ) Posthumous A Moveable Feast ( 1964 ) Islands in the Stream ( 1970 ) The Dangerous Summer ( 1985 ) The Garden of Eden ( 1986 ) True at First Light ( 1999 ) Under Kilimanjaro ( 2005 ) Short stories `` Indian Camp '' ( 1925 ) `` The Doctor and the Doctor 's Wife '' ( 1925 ) `` The End of Something '' ( 1925 ) `` The Three - Day Blow '' ( 1925 ) `` The Battler '' ( 1925 ) `` A Very Short Story '' ( 1925 ) `` Soldier 's Home '' ( 1925 ) `` The Revolutionist '' ( 1925 ) `` Mr. and Mrs. Elliot '' ( 1925 ) `` Cat in the Rain '' ( 1925 ) `` Out of Season '' ( 1925 ) `` Cross Country Snow '' ( 1925 ) `` My Old Man '' ( 1925 ) `` Big Two - Hearted River '' ( 1925 ) `` A Clean, Well - Lighted Place '' ( 1926 ) `` A Canary for One '' ( 1926 ) `` Fifty Grand '' ( 1927 ) `` Hills Like White Elephants '' ( 1927 ) `` The Killers '' ( 1927 ) `` The Undefeated '' ( 1927 ) `` Che Ti Dice La Patria ? '' ( 1927 ) `` In Another Country '' ( 1927 ) `` On the Quai at Smyrna '' ( 1930 ) `` Fathers and Sons '' ( 1932 ) `` A Day 's Wait '' ( 1933 ) `` The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio '' ( 1933 ) `` A Way You 'll Never Be '' ( 1933 ) `` The Snows of Kilimanjaro '' ( 1936 ) `` The Capital of the World '' ( 1936 ) `` The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber '' ( 1936 ) Short story collections Three Stories and Ten Poems ( 1923 ) In Our Time ( 1925 ) Men Without Women ( 1927 ) Winner Take Nothing ( 1933 ) The Fifth Column and the First Forty - Nine Stories ( 1938 ) The Snows of Kilimanjaro ( 1961 ) The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War ( 1969 ) The Nick Adams Stories ( 1972 ) The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway ( 1987 ) Ernest Hemingway : The Collected Stories ( 1995 ) Story fragments `` On Writing '' Poetry 88 Poems ( 1979 ) Complete Poems Letters and journalism Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917 -- 1961 ( 1981 ) Dateline : Toronto ( 1985 ) The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway ( 2011 ) Adaptations The Sun Also Rises 1957 film 1984 film Opera The Select ( The Sun Also Rises ) Ballet `` The Killers '' 1946 film 1956 film 1964 film Bukowski short story A Farewell to Arms 1932 film 1957 film 1966 TV series To Have and Have Not 1944 film The Breaking Point ( 1950 ) The Gun Runners ( 1958 ) Captain Khorshid ( 1987 ) For Whom the Bell Tolls 1943 film 1965 TV series Metallica song The Old Man and the Sea 1958 film 1990 miniseries 1999 film Other film adaptations The Macomber Affair ( 1947 ) The Snows of Kilimanjaro ( 1952 ) Hemingway 's Adventures of a Young Man ( 1962 ) Islands in the Stream ( 1977 ) See also Nick Adams Michigan cottage Idaho house Key West home Hotel Ambos Mundos, Havana home Finca Vigía, Cuba home Pilar ( boat ) The Spanish Earth ( 1937 film ) Bacall to Arms ( 1946 cartoon ) Hello Hemingway ( 1990 film ) In Love and War ( 1996 film ) Hemingway & Gellhorn ( 2012 film ) Cooper & Hemingway : The True Gen ( 2013 documentary ) Papa : Hemingway in Cuba ( 2015 film ) Hemingway Foundation / PEN Award Kennedy Library Hemingway collection Family Elizabeth Hadley Richardson ( first wife ) Jack Hemingway ( son ) Pauline Pfeiffer ( second wife ) Patrick Hemingway ( son ) Gregory Hemingway ( son ) Martha Gellhorn ( third wife ) Mary Welsh Hemingway ( fourth wife ) Grace Hall Hemingway ( mother ) Leicester Hemingway ( brother ) Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hills_Like_White_Elephants&oldid=805274204 '' Categories : 1927 short stories Short stories by Ernest Hemingway Abortion in fiction Hidden categories : Articles that may contain original research from October 2015 All articles that may contain original research Talk Contents About Wikipedia Français 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 14 October 2017, at 07 : 37. 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Question: what is the white elephant in hills like white elephants
Answer: a child