Originally published in a 1927 collection entitled Men Without Women, Ernest Hemmingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants was thus inadvertently adorned with a misogynistically inferential umbrella title and (if it hadn’t already contained) such undertones were immediately applied to the story insofar as a reader is willing to study and interpret. Regardless of the applied undertones that encompassing story collections may apply to the piece, it is inherently wrought with semantic nuances unique to each sex and the contained overt conversation is a prime piece of linguistic study in the ways of binary gendered communication differences.

The story is made up of a great deal of dialogue in which the two characters, a couple of indiscernible relationship, converse equivocally on an unnamed surgical procedure that a reader can rightfully assume is an abortion. While Hemmingway is guilty of a few subtle semantic manipulations in his total narrative, a great deal of the revealing linguistic evidence lies in the conversation between the characters; ambiguous and vague topics in accordance with miscommunications are thus produced. In association with the miscommunications of conversations between men and woman, I’ve referenced Deborah Tannen’s book, “You Just Don’t Understand”, as she does a meticulous job at deciphering the mercurial technicalities behind why separate genders say the things they say. Tannen divides men and women by explaining how, “though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men the second” (26).

Immediately we are given the man’s nationality: “the American”. However, Jig, the female in the story’s dichotomy, is merely described as “the girl with him”. While this description gives her no nationality, and no description other than the word “girl” it is immediately clear to the reader that she is a girl and not a woman. That simple semantic maneuver supplies ample amount of information to an astute reader; a man, of whom one may have already applied American and adult attributes to is traveling with an unnamed girl, not an unnamed woman, and therefore has more power and is placed at a higher point in the unwritten hierarchy. Using the word “girl” implies, particularly in the generation the story was written, that the female in the case is potentially immature, incompetent, and not an individual to be taken too seriously.

The dialogue shared between the couple is tense in spirit; much of what the woman (or, rather, girl) says is met with informative hostility or flippant negation where as the woman’s are typically framed in vague, polite discourse or question forms. At one instance, the girl asks the man if they could try Anis del Toro, a presumably foreign beverage served at the station. It’s clear that she would like to try the drink, but instead of just outright stating her desire she poses the question: “could we try it?” (Hemmingway). This female speech practice is not a product of insecurity or conscious subordinate consideration, but because of an inherent focus on intimacy and connection. Reaching a decision through conversation or consensus is a way to build upon and maintain a sense of closeness; it has nothing to do with requesting or feeling a want for permission from her male counterpart.

Conversely, the man displays his inherent desire for independence and heightened hierarchy through practiced and direct one-upmanship. The girl makes a comment about the hills looking like white elephants, and though he says that he’s never seen one when she retorts that he wouldn’t have he responds sharply with “I might have… just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything,” (Hemmingway). This biting response is no doubt a knee-jerk reaction to feeling belittled in some way by her making a comment about his potential past visual experiences. She discredits him, he feels, and so he’s immediately inclined to defend himself and his independence since “a lack of independence, which the men regard as synonymous with incompetence and insecurity” (Tannen, 39).

The man exercises his hierarchical one-upmanship further when he responds to the girl saying that she was “having a fine time” (Hemmingway). By responding with a permissive “Well, let’s try and have a fine time,” (Hemmingway) the man is showing that he is in agreement with her statement of having a ‘fine time’; basically, he is granting her the privilege to do so. This not only places the woman in the inferior position, but it places the man in the dominant one, as “those in a position to grant privileges are also in a position to change their minds and take them away,” (Tannen, 34).

Ultimately, though, the underlying conflict of the story is not the inefficiency with which the couple converses, but rather the equivocal topic that they’re discussing: abortion. He brings up the topic abruptly, explaining that ‘It’s really an awfully simple operation,” (Hemmingway) and that she won’t mind it one bit. While his intentions are well and good, her silent responses show her discontent at the idea. She’s unsure and his reassurances are making the situation more uninviting for her; “when men try to reassure women by telling them that their situation is not so bleak, the women hear their feelings being belittled or discounted” (Tannen, 59). Though she eventually objects to the conversation being had, the man continues to try to explain away the procedure in broad, astute-sounding terms. It’s clear that she continues to feel badly about it, regardless of how easy he assures her the procedure will be; his reassurances leads her to feel worse, in fact, as is obvious in her attempts to divert the conversation.

In an effort to change the subject, Jig requests that they drop the subject. The man does not, however, drop it, as “…a man who wants to avoid feeling that he is following orders may instinctively wait before doing what she asked, in order to imagine that he is doing it of his own free will.” (Tannen, 31). Further more, her initial request to end the conversation was just that: a request. In saying “can’t we maybe stop talking?” she has, through the uncertain adverb ‘maybe’, destabilized and made hesitant her appeal, allowing the man to easily disregard it as insubstantial. Her second attempt to stop the conversation is ineffectually more desperate, as she repeats the word ‘please’ seven times. Though the utterance is still in request form, Deborah Tannen explains this phenomenon in that “a woman will be inclined to repeat a request that doesn’t get a response because she is convinced that her husband would do what she asks, if only he understood that she really wants him to do it” (31).

In a last attempt to reassure or regain a semblance of intimacy, Jig directly asks the man whether or not things will go back to the way they originally were (intimate) if she goes through with the procedure. She asks if he’ll love her. He reassures her with direct statements of adoration, but she pursues this quest for intimacy by asking also if he’d appreciate her romantic lamentations again (more) if she goes through with the procedure. Ultimately, she’s seeking a promise for potential intimacy should she throw herself and what she wants to the wayside and do as he’s urging her to do.

Just a few short pages, Hemmingway’s Hills like White Elephants is a timeless and revealing piece of classic literature that reveals the familiar traces of misunderstanding apparent in conversations had between so many men and women. Dated, perhaps, only by the names of the drinks, Hemmingway keeps the story short and to the point, much like the couple in the conversation does not. The woman seeks a reconnection; a recovery of a perhaps once intimate relationship with her male counterpart, and the man is attempting to comfort her through informative and flippant reassurances. Though the man’s attempts are in good faith, he manages only to distance himself from the girl. In keeping with the formulaic ways in which the gender’s converse with each other Hemmingway makes accessible even a controversial conversation such as abortion.