Significantly, this story unfolds as the man and the girl wait at a station for a train to Madrid. The heat is oppressive and the two are forced to wait, drinking away the afternoon till the train arrives. This sense of agonizing waiting permeates the story from the setting itself—a hot, dry river valley at a literal crossroads—to the crucial decision the couple is trying to make: whether or not to have an abortion.
To leave or to stay, to embrace parenthood or to reject it,to give up one’s own desires for the desires of another, are key decisions at play here.The delayed resolution of these decisions forms the driving action of the story.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Choice ThemeTracker
Choice Quotes in Hills Like White Elephants
“It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s not really an operation at all.”
“I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.”
The girl did not say anything.
“Then what will we do afterward?”
“We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.”
“What makes you think so?”
“That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only that’s made us unhappy.”
“And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.”
“I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it.”
“So have I,” said the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy.”
“Well,” the man said, “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.”
“…But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”
“Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.”
“And we could have all this,” she said “And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.”
“What did you say?”
“I said we could have everything.”
“We can have everything.”
“No, we can’t.”
“We can go everywhere.”
“No, we can’t. It isn’t ours any more.”
“It’s ours.”
“No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back.”
“Come on back in the shade,” he said. “You mustn’t feel that way.”
“I don’t feel any way,” the girl said. “I just know things.”
“All right. But you’ve got to realize—”
“I realize,” the girl said. “Can’t we maybe stop talking?”
“Doesn’t it mean anything to you? We could get along.”
“Of course it does. But I don’t want anybody but you. I don’t want anyone else. And I know it’s perfectly simple.”
