about the ending in Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

The fluidity in the interpretation of a story, or of art in general, in my opinion, is what makes that story interesting. Each interpretation creates a new world and makes a new sense for the story to blossom in that world. Therefore, when it comes to “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, what seems most fascinating is the multilayeredness of which the ending can be understood. The story could end as the pregnant girl chose to stay silent to let things rest at ease or as she decided to break up with the man and had it her own way in happiness. However, I do not think Hemingway would let things settle down easily as such. I agree that the story ended in happiness, not of leaving but of the change of mind of the American man about the abortion.

A troublesome relationship resolved by a happy parting of ways is commonly how people interpret the ending since the man seems to argue with his girlfriend about aborting the pregnancy during most previous parts of the story. He thought of the abortion as just “a simple operation”. He lacked the understanding of how self-tormented she could be to banish something that was growing inside her body and soul. Having the baby required the man to settle down and give up his adventurous life. However, that path of life was not something he was ready to take. He was concerned more about losing his venturesome lifestyle than the feelings of his pregnant girlfriend. Right after lyingly pacifying her with the freedom of choice about the abortion, the man got back to grind on her face the insistence that she should do as he wished. To her, the baby was a test of the man’s commitment. Hence, by refusing the baby, he seemed to fail it. Without commitment, their relationship was nothing but just a temporary temptation. Therefore, after a stressful moment of internal conflicts that she had during their conversation, she eventually came to the conclusion to call off the relationship to free herself from the disturbance and take control of her own decision. If interpreted this way, the smile portraited at the end was a smile of happiness after realizing her freedom.

However, I believe that the ending of the story was considered happy because the man did a 180 on the matter of their pregnancy. Though they had their differences at first about whether to keep the baby, the tension of conflict seemed to vanish in the last moment of the story. It started with the waitress’s mentioning of “The train comes in 5 minutes”. After witnessing the quarrel between the couple, at last, the waitress tried to intervene to remind them of the shortness of life with a metaphorized expression of the train’s arrival. And in the wake of such a reminder, the man decided to “take the bags over to the other side of the station”. These bags were the figure of speech to denote the couples’ past of lavishness and adventures. Hence, by “taking the bags to the other side”, Hemingway wanted to indicate the man’s readiness to take in commitment and give up his past for their baby. Additionally, when the man came to the other side of the station, he “could not see the train”, which means he could not see the meaning of their future if he decided to keep living the life of his past. However, when coming back to the side in which the girl was sitting, he saw that many people were “waiting reasonably for the train”, for the hopeful future with commitment. This realization made the man understand the girl’s feelings. Hence, he decided to walk through “the bead curtain” and broke down the barrier between them to walk with her on her path. That explains why the girl felt “fine” and smiled at him in happiness when being asked.

Even though both interpretations are validly comprehensible and bring their unique meaning to the story, my understanding of the ending would make the relevant details about the man in the closing sequences seem more relevant and sensible to the depiction of their relationship throughout this whole anecdote.