Hills Like White Elephants setting

Ernest Hemingway in his short story “ Hills Like White Elephants” was perfectly validating his quote “ The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one eighth of it being above water”.  Hemingway employed a brilliant technique to reveal the content of his narrative; he is totally dependent on both the settings of the story and the dialog between his main characters. Through these two elements along with deliberate sprinkled hints readers are able to guess unwritten details. 

Yet, the setting of the story has played a vital role in conveying inner thoughts and emotions of the characters.  For instant, Hemingway utilizes the landscape that surrounds the train station. As he describes it, it is a valley that divided by the train rails.  One side of the valley is representing the fertility and the other side portraying the dry side.  The author by using this picture he wants to reflect on the ongoing struggle between the two characters; the girl wants life and reproduction and that is by keeping the baby. So in the story she wants to move from the dry valley to the grain fields’ valley. On the other hand, the American wants to take the train from the dry valley that ends up in Madrid where the abortion will take place. 

The writer also gives another picture when he describes the valley of grain covered by the shadow of cloud. It is also an illustration of threat of death or troubles over live or peace.