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Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hills Like White Elephants, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
As the story makes clear from the beginning, both the man and the girl are accustomed to a free, uncommitted lifestyle. When the man looks at their combined luggage, it is covered with “labels…from all the hotels where they had spent nights.” The two of them have spent a long time traveling together, going wherever they wanted without restriction. The decision to carry through with the girl’s pregnancy and create a family would completely alter the nature of their relationship. They would have to settle down. Rather than spending nights in hotel after hotel, they would have to build a home of their own. The man very definitively doesn’t want to “settle down” in this way, and thinks it will be easy not to. He is firm in his conviction that this pregnancy is “the only thing that’s made us unhappy” and that getting the abortion will be “perfectly simple” and “perfectly natural.” In a sense, he thinks that the pregnancy is something they can just leave behind the way they would leave a hotel they’d already stayed in.
The girl, on the other hand, maintains a wholly different attitude toward her pregnancy. To her, having a child with her partner promises a world where “we could have everything,” an altogether different definition of freedom. Ultimately, however, she tentatively agrees to the procedure, surrendering her own freedom of choice to a different sort of idea of “family,” as she hopes that doing so will restore the man’s love for her. The story implies, though, through the girl’s initial resistance and then her perhaps too-strong statement that nothing is wrong, that the girl will not be able to so “freely” move on from the pregnancy, and that the man’s insistence on maintaining his definition of freedom has impinged on the girl’s own freedom.
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Freedom vs Family ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Freedom vs Family appears in each chapter of Hills Like White Elephants. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Hills Like White ...
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Freedom vs Family Quotes in Hills Like White Elephants
Below you will find the important quotes in Hills Like White Elephants related to the theme of Freedom vs Family.
Hills Like White Elephants Quotes
“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.
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Here, the man is continuing to use the girl's pet name to manipulate her into feeling like he will love her more if she has the abortion. He is also, in this statement, continuing to use language to try to paper over the reality of the situation they are facing. Before, he told the girl that the operation wasn't "really an operation at all," and now he's saying it's "not anything" and it's "just to let the air in." These words are obviously literally untrue, but his rhetoric is meant to manipulate the girl into believing that the abortion is Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperi
“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.”
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It is at this moment that the reader realizes that the girl has been silent not entirely out of anger, but also because the man's manipulation of her is beginning to work. He has promised her several improbable things, and now, by asking what they will do afterwards, she shows that she is seriously considering the abortion as a result. His manipulation continues as he tells her an obvious untruth, that the pregnancy is the only thing wrong with their relationship. This is a clear instance in which the the girl's and the man's conceptions of happiness are at odds. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas
“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.”
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Until now readers could not be entirely sure of the tone of the conversation that the man and the girl are having--we're not sure to what extent the girl is actually buying his manipulation. In her statement that she has known lots of people who had abortions and "afterward they were all so happy," though, we realize that the girl's statements have a twinge of sarcasm; she is still resisting, after all. This is another instance of the complexity of language in the story--we've seen it working as a code, as a smokescreen, and now saying one thing and meaning Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a de
“…But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”
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Now it seems clear that the girl is leaning towards agreeing to terminate her pregnancy, but it certainly doesn't seem like a choice that she has freely made. Instead of choosing abortion because she is genuinely convinced by the man's appeals, she uses the abortion as a bargaining chip, essentially making him promise that he'll love her and that they will communicate better and have a nicer relationship if she does what he wants. This question of hers is particularly significant because it implies that their elliptical and evasive conversational style is also something that she wants to address in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis conse
“Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.”
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A major theme in this story is the ways in which our words become estranged from their meanings in tense situations, and this is a perfect example. The girl, who is by now irrevocably entangled in the man's web of manipulation, seems to feel that she has few options left for resistance. Her disingenuous avowal that "I don't care about me" is framed as a selfless offer to follow the man's wishes, but is actually meant as an appeal to him to recognize his own selfishness. By seemingly embracing his consuming power, she is attempting to passive-aggressively critique it, hoping Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et
“And we could have all this,” she said “And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.”
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Like her statement that the hills look like white elephants, this is the girl's attempt to make a coded appeal to the reality she envisions. Just before saying this she looks out on the landscape that had been formerly described as barren and suddenly she sees grain and trees. The hills are fertile to her, while to the man they were dusty and empty, which symbolizes their conflicted views of their situation. By this point in the story the girl has been manipulated thoroughly, and it seemed that her ability to resist the man was limited to small disruptions of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. No
“What did you say?”
“I said we could have everything.”
“We can have everything.”
“No, we can’t.”
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As the conversation progresses, the girl's seeming optimism is tempered. The tone of their conversation makes it seem like she was only capable of making such a sweeping statement ("we could have everything") because she already felt that the possibility was closed. This also shows the conflicting realities of the man and the girl--while for her having everything would mean starting a family, for him having everything means returning to their life of superficial adventure. They appear here to be having the same conversation, but they are arguing about different things. This conversation is poignant, too, because it shows the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Re
“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.”
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While in the above quote it wasn't entirely clear that the man and the girl were having two different conversations, here it is obvious. The man is talking quite literally about their freedom to travel, which he values above all else, and the woman is talking about several things at once. On one level, she is talking about the baby, which she sees as already gone. On another level, she seems to be talking more abstractly about a togetherness or a sympathy between the two of them that seems to have been destroyed in the course of deciding to have Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque erro
“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.”
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This is one of the most crass manipulations of all. Here the girl is clumsily trying to win the man over to her perspective on the abortion and their potential family, and the man reframes it in a way that preys on her hopes. Throughout the story, the love lost between them has been frequently alluded to, and it's clear that the woman wants kindness and love to return to their relationship very badly. While she believes their relationship would be better if they had the baby, he believes that it would improve by not having the baby and returning Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Veli
He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.
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This is a poignant moment, as the man glances at the luggage after recognizing that he has not yet persuaded the girl to see the abortion his way. The luggage, with all the labels from far-flung hotels, is symbolic both of the life of freedom and adventure that they've had so far, and of the burden (the "baggage") that the pregnancy has placed on their relationship and the limits that a baby (in his opinion) would place on their future. It's powerful that the same luggage can simultaneously symbolize opposite realities--this is emblematic of the impasse in their relationship, as Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Ac
He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train.
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Throughout this story, the man and the girl drink copious amounts of alcohol as a means of escaping their reality. So much of this story is about finding ways to avoid confronting their difficult choice: their refusal to speak about it literally, their symbolic preference of the shade over the light, and their relentless drinking, for instance. This moment represents a whole new level of evasiveness, as the man stops at the bar to drink apart from the girl, even though he has a beer waiting at their table. His observation that everyone else is "waiting reasonably for the train" Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptate
