Abortion In Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

In Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants”, an interesting relationship between a girl and an American boy was introduced. The story seems to be about their discussion of a particular ‘operation’, or more bluntly, the abortion. There are actually more underlying problems to the discussion than there seem to be. This interesting relationship is depicted by the author’s use of intriguing choice of point of view, setting, and concrete details. It is fair to say that after the story concludes, the girl will decide not to have the abortion and will part with the boy because she will eventually realize how problematic their relationship is and how her way of living contradicts his.
Initially, the girl is highly dependent on the boy. At the very beginning, the setting of a bar in a

train station in Spain is introduced. The girl’s inability to communicate in Spanish makes her completely dependent on the boy, as well as reflects her incompetence to voice herself. While they are drinking, they obliquely talk about the abortion, which the guy refers to as an “awfully simple operation”, as he tries to downplay the seriousness of it. The guy is very anxious about the abortion— he wants the girl to do it, and he expects everything to be “fine afterwards”. However, the girl is indecisive. She is willing to have the abortion for the guy, as she says that she does not “care about” herself, how she just cares about the guy. The way she talks reflects her immaturity that is not expected from a mature, sophisticated woman, but a girl who is agitated to please the man that she is with. Furthermore, The girl mentions the hills “like white elephants” in their conversation, which she implies to be the unborn child, an unwanted gift that the girl somewhat wants to keep.
Later on, the girl matures quite a bit and sees who the guy truly is.

The guy keeps saying that the abortion is “perfectly natural” and “perfectly simple”— he is forcing the girl to have the abortion while he claims that he wouldn't have the girl do it is she “didn't want to”. The guy thinks that the child would anchor him down, which impedes him from living the life that they are leading now— trying one drink after another, changing from one hotel to another, and traveling from places to places. On the other hand, the girl is tired of this unstable lifestyle; she is tired of keeping to“look at things and try new drinks”; she is tired of dealing with all the uncertainties. Moreover, she later on retracts her previous comment on the hills, “they don't really look like white elephants”; by this she implies her wish to keep the unborn child, but the American misses it. The guy thinks that the baby is the “only that bothers” them and he persists the girl to have the operation by saying how he will stay with the girl “all the time” while she does the operation. The girl now realizes how a barely-fixable, problematic relationship it is, and she now knows what to expect from the

guy.
Eventually, the girl makes up her mind. Since the girl now knows what she wants, which contradicts with what the guy wants, her mind is made up. As the setting introduces, the story takes place at a train station. This isolated train station is merely a stopping point for them in the journey, so is only a stopping point in her life. Train stations are where people decide where to go next; they are where decisions are made. She has made hers, too. In the last scenes, the girl and the guy drink separately by themselves, which foreshadows their parting.
As the girl matures up in the story, she has now transitions into a more independent woman whose opinions would not be altered by the man that she is with. With all the factors considered, it is fair to conclude that she is going to keep the baby as she wishes to, and is going to part with the man who does not realize how questionable their relationship is.