Hills Like White Elephants Code Hero Analysis

Hills Like White Elephants: Will the child come?

In the 1920’s abortion was a taboo idea and many frowned upon it in the United States. “Hills Like White Elephants” is another one of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories that may seem very simple, but has many underlying symbols and lead the outlier to reread the story to find the symbols and hidden meanings. A lot can be assumed when reading “Hills Like White Elephants” and if you understand how Ernest Hemingway thinks using his “Code Hero’ way of thinking, you can see that The American and Jig will soon be having a child. By analyzing a few symbols seen throughout the story; White Elephants, the description of Jig as a girl and not a woman, and the bead curtain we will conclude with the fact

that Jig decided to not have the abortion that the two characters are talking about.
“Hills Like White Elephants” seems to be a simple read with the ending of the story leaving much to the imagination. The very beginning starts with the main problem being addressed when the girl describes some far distant hills looking like ‘White Elephants’. White elephants were used by kings in Thailand to punish people because although they were gifts, they were difficult to maintain and burdensome.
Originally white elephants were of great value. Albino elephants were once considered sacred in what is now Thailand. They were so rare that each one born automatically became the property of the king and was not permitted to work. When a subject incurred the king's displeasure, the angry monarch would give one of his white elephants to the object of his ire. The enormous appetite and utter uselessness of the white elephant would soon plunge the "gifted" man into financial ruin. (Tucker, Don)
The girl, Jig, describes the hills as white elephants. Later, Jig says ‘They’re lovely hills, they don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees.’ This can be seen as the start of a transition from thinking of the pregnancy as a burden, to only seeing it as one but not truly believing it. Jig is not the only character that goes through a transition. The American can be seen changing his mind in the end as well.
For those familiar with Ernest Hemingway’s code hero, you can find that the man in the story is resembled as another one of Ernest Hemingway’s Mans Man. Many stories of his are said to be his life written in fiction. “Hills Like White Elephants” is no exception, Hemingway defined the Code Hero as
"A man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful." He measures himself by how well he handles the difficult situations that life throws at him.

In the end the Code Hero will lose because we are all mortal, but the true measure is how a person faces death. He believes in "Nada," a Spanish word meaning nothing. Along with this, there is no after life. (Gillani)

In “Hills Like White Elephants” we see the American as this stoic, adventurous man who drinks and lays with women but is fighting the pregnancy as if it is a problem and assumes it will stop his drinking and adventurous ways. Although some see pregnancy as this amazing time he sees it as chaotic and stressful, described when he tells Jig, “You know how I get when I worry” and ““But I don’t want anyone but you. I don’t want anyone else”. The American does go through a small transition at the end, and it is brought to us by the bead

curtain.
The waitress in the story is immediately mentioned to us as a woman and Jig is identified as ‘the girl’, separated the entire time by the bead curtain. We notice Jigs young attitude when she tries to elicit a response from the American saying, “I don’t care about me”, (Hemingway) Ernest Hemingway is giving us a glimpse of her young and naïve attitude toward the situation. As Meg Gillette states Jig is,” an unsophisticated "girl" characterized by such maternal attributes as intuition ("'I just know things') and self-sacrifice ("'There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine'") (Gillette). Ernest Heming way leaves open to the fact that although she is naïve, she has to possible attitude of motherhood and starts leaning towards the fact that keeping the child would be better and is described when Ernest Hemingway’s character gets up from the conversation about having the abortion and walks to the end of the train tracks and look sat ‘the other side’. Jig can see fields of grain and tress along the banks of the Ebro. She says “And we could have all this, and we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.” Afterwards they go back and forth and the American tells her to step back into the shade. Meaning she was in the light and could see what it would be like. From here the story redirects from conversation to Jig asking about having the child, “Doesn’t it mean anything to you, we could get along”.
At the end of the story we see everything come in to place.

From Jigs transition into thinking they could have the child and “get along” we notice the transition the American makes as well, when he goes to the ‘other side’ of the tracks and finally goes into the bar. As described earlier, the other side of the tracks are where Jig saw the fields of grain and the Ebro. The man unknowingly walked into his decision. After all, he did reaffirm to Jig that “I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to”, after she asks “Doesn’t it mean anything to you” he replies “Of course it does”. (Hemingway) Ernest Hemingway is asserting that no matter what Jig decides, the man will be there. We can translate this into his code hero, by being courageous even when he sees it as the death of his way of life. Once the man puts the bags down there are three important factors that come into play. He look sup the track but does not see the train and he goes into the bar, something that had separated the two from the very beginning was the bead curtain. Not seeing the train gives us the idea that they couple ultimately des not decide to go to Madrid and there for does not have the abortion. When he returns from the bar he also walks through the curtain, which was seen as a barrier the entire time in the story. This is his transition that he listens to Jig and in the end understands that she is wanting to have the child. Code hero tells us that the man will be courageous and in the end lose to the

chaos, in this case the pregnancy and the fact the child will come.