‘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.’
‘And you really want to?’
‘I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.’
‘And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?’
‘I love you now. You know I love you.’
‘I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?’
‘I’ll love it. I love it now but I just can’t think about it. You know how I get when I worry.’
‘If I do it you won’t ever worry?’
‘I won’t worry about that because it’s perfectly simple.’
‘Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me.’
For such a short story, “Hills Like White Elephants” has so much going on in it. On a basic level, it is a vignette of crisis. Jig is pregnant and the couple find themselves at a jarring crossroads, both literally and metaphorically. The couple must choose between settling down with a newborn child or having an abortion and carrying on with their formerly uninhibited, free-spirited lives. And though the man repeatedly tries to soften their predicament by calling it “an awfully simple operation,” Jig clearly has more complex feelings about their decision, particularly because her lover is sending her mixed messages, telling her that “I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.” Ostensibly, the man supports her in whatever choice she makes, but the way he words things makes it appear otherwise. In fact, it seems like he doesn’t even realize that he is out of love with her, that he is unconsciously scapegoating their problematic relationship on Jig’s pregnancy, and that the girl can sense this in him and fears loss and abandonment. She is afraid that their relationship hinges on the baby, and that if she were to abort the child she would also be aborting her relationship with the man. Hence, their tense and scattered conversation about whether or not to go through with the abortion is, on an unspoken level, truly a conversation about whether or not to go through with their relationship. In this sense, the pregnancy symbolizes their instable relationship, romantic anxieties, and inability to commit to each other’s love. For instance, she is immensely concerned whether, as she says to him, “things will be like they were and you’ll love me,” and whether their relationship, currently plagued by the pregnancy, will regain its original passion and piquancy. Jig desperately wants their love to remain unfazed by the pregnancy and yearns for a time when she can say “things are like white elephants and you’ll like it,” alluding to their relationship prior to this incident. As for the man, whether or not he knows it on a conscious level, he is terrified of giving up his uninhibited freedom to roam the world, to “look at things and try new drinks,” as Jig blandly puts it. The child would be a hindrance to his freedom, so he can’t see the joy in having a child; all he sees is misery and an end to his independent, transient lifestyle.
The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.
‘And we could have all this,’ she said. ‘And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.’
Jig is constantly gazing at the hills, contemplating how they resemble white elephants; every time jig brings it up, however, the man either changes the topic or appears disinterested in them. This is juxtaposed with Jig’s evident fixation upon those brightly lit hills to which she periodically ruminates over. When she stares off into those white hills, she sees that the couple “could have everything,” both their freedom and the child. When the man looks at those hills, on the other hand, he sees the death of his independence. He makes this prospect of settling down “impossible” because he can’t break free from his internalized paradigm of settling down—his preconceived notion that having a child will interfere and complicate the simple and carefree life they had lived up until this critical point in time. Thus, he doesn’t want to hear about, talk about, or even look at those pristine white hills, seeing as on a subconscious level they represent the end of his rugged individualism. The two sides of the Ebro, the barren side and the fertile side, represent this difference in perspective. To Jig, settling down with the child is fertile ground; for the man, it is a dry and relentlessly hot wasteland.
20th Century Literature 
I feel like I was bogged down in some analytical haze when I wrote this post, so I wanted to post a cursory response about how I feel about this story on a more personal level. Though I’ve never been in a situation remotely close to this one, the tense and anxiety provoking dialogue–intermittent with awkward silences and introspective gazes–seemed so real and true to me. I felt their fears and threatened desires, saw their oscillating views between a life of endless travel and a settled life. I also saw their foolishness. Yes–shit happens. But if this man is so bent on a life of impermanence, anchoring his conception of freedom to the physical act of travelling, then he should have been cautious about what he was doing. If pregnancy is such a scare, then why did they even risk it? Or why were they saw careless? Or maybe, as I originally stated, shit happens. Jig would happily settle down with him, but the man has this false paradigm of freedom that makes it “impossible.” And as we saw in class today, the story’s meaning can be slightly changed depending upon the way you read it or act it out. In my opinion, Jig is acquiescing to the man’s false conception of conception.