Hills Like White Elephants Short Story

Hemingway’s short story is about a man and a girl who are waiting at a train station in the Valley of the Ebro, for their train to arrive from Barcelona. They plan on going to Madrid, the capital of Spain. While they wait for the train, they sit down at a bar. The atmosphere is really hot and sunny, so they ask for a couple of beers as well as try out a new drink. They are sitting next to bead curtains with a drawing of that drink, called Anis del Toro. Based on the dialogue of their conversation, it leads us to believe that they are talking about having an abortion. He uses words such as “operation” and says that it will be simple. He also says that he only wants to do it if she does. It seems that he is unhappy that she got pregnant, since he says “It's the only thing that's made us unhappy.” We can’t really get anything else from the story, such as whether or not they are married. Although we can imply that they are at least in a relationship. It can be vague at times, but the dialogue helps keep you interested throughout the entire story, and we are given enough detail to get an idea of what is going on.