Ernest Hemingway, the author of "Hills Like White Elephants" uses details of the.
railway station setting and the two sides of the Ebro River to emphasize the choice which.
the couple must make.
The railroad symbolizes the halfway point between an important decision that .
needs to be made. "The station was between two lines of rails"(Hemingway 170). A man .
and a woman are located in the middle of the tracks, just as they are in the middle about .
the decision on abortion. The couple does not know whether to keep the baby or not. But .
they do not have much time to make this choice. The railroad also is a ticking timetable: .
the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes and it stopped at the junction .
for two minutes, allowing the couple only forty-two minutes to discuss and decide on a .
life-altering decision (Hemingway 170). .
Both sides of the Ebro River represent the positives and negatives of the abortion. On the opposite side of where the couple sits, there " were fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro River" (Hemingway 172). This side of the river is full of life and it so beautiful it is breath-taking. Hemingway uses fields of grain to symbolize life on the on the other side of the station. Grain in history is a symbol of fertility. The exquisite and lively side represents the full life the woman could have if she decides against the abortion and has the baby. .
On the side where the couple sits, "there is no shade and no trees"(Hemingway 170). The land is barren and without life: the country is brown and dry (Hemingway 170). This deserted, barren land reveals how life without a child will be. If she goes through with the abortion, she will become just like the land itself. She would be barren, dry, and without life, new or old. The couple's relationship will become fruitless and purposeless. Death is even a possible consequence. The country is nothing but death.
