Why Does Hemingway Set “Hills Like White Elephants” in Spain? The Significance of the Spanish Setting for American Expatriates
Author: MARTIN MUNYAO MUINDE
Email: Ephantusmartin@gmail.com
Direct Answer
Ernest Hemingway deliberately sets “Hills Like White Elephants” in Spain to emphasize the emotional and cultural isolation experienced by American expatriates in the 1920s. The Spanish setting serves as a liminal space—a junction between destinations—that mirrors the couple’s own state of being caught between two life-changing decisions. The barren landscape of the Ebro Valley, the foreign language barriers, and the transient nature of the train station all reinforce themes of disconnection, moral ambiguity, and the inability to communicate effectively. Spain, as a location distant from American moral frameworks and social conventions, provides the characters with anonymity and freedom from judgment, yet simultaneously intensifies their isolation and inability to resolve their crisis. This geographical and cultural displacement becomes a powerful metaphor for the couple’s emotional state and the broader experience of the Lost Generation living abroad.
The Historical Context of American Expatriates in 1920s Spain
The 1920s witnessed an unprecedented migration of American writers, artists, and intellectuals to Europe, particularly to Paris, Madrid, and other cosmopolitan centers. This phenomenon, often associated with the Lost Generation, emerged from post-World War I disillusionment with American materialism, Prohibition-era restrictions, and perceived cultural stagnation. Hemingway himself was among these expatriates, spending significant time in Spain between 1923 and 1939, deeply immersing himself in Spanish culture, bullfighting, and the landscape that would feature prominently in his fiction (Reynolds, 1989). Spain offered American expatriates a space of relative freedom, lower living costs, and distance from the conservative social mores of 1920s America. The country represented both an escape and a confrontation with fundamental questions about identity, morality, and purpose that many Americans sought to explore outside their homeland’s boundaries.
The cultural landscape of Spain in this period presented a stark contrast to American society. While the United States was experiencing the Roaring Twenties with its jazz culture, economic boom, and social transformation, Spain remained a predominantly Catholic, traditional society still grappling with political instability that would eventually lead to civil war. For American expatriates, this cultural difference created a unique psychological space where they existed between two worlds—neither fully American nor Spanish. This in-between state is precisely what Hemingway captures in “Hills Like White Elephants,” where the unnamed American man and the young woman called Jig find themselves literally and figuratively stranded in a space of transition. The story’s publication in 1927 reflects the peak of expatriate literature, when writers like Hemingway used foreign settings not merely as exotic backdrops but as essential elements that shaped their narratives’ psychological and thematic dimensions (Stoneback, 1989).
The Ebro Valley as a Symbolic Landscape
Hemingway’s choice of the Ebro Valley as the specific Spanish location carries profound symbolic weight that extends beyond mere geographical accuracy. The story opens with a description of the landscape: the hills on one side are “long and white” and resemble white elephants, while the other side of the valley is described as fertile with fields of grain and trees along the river. This stark visual contrast between barrenness and fertility directly parallels the central conflict of the story—the woman’s pregnancy and the couple’s debate about abortion (Renner, 1995). The white hills, which Jig observes look like white elephants, introduce a culturally loaded metaphor. In Western idiom, a “white elephant” refers to a burdensome possession that is expensive to maintain and difficult to dispose of, yet the phrase also suggests something rare and potentially valuable. This ambiguity captures the couple’s conflicting perspectives on the pregnancy.
The barren, almost lunar quality of the Ebro landscape reinforces the emotional sterility and spiritual emptiness that characterizes the couple’s relationship. Spain’s vast, undeveloped interior spaces in the 1920s provided a geography of emptiness that mirrored the psychological state of expatriates who had fled American society but found themselves unable to construct meaningful connections in their adopted lands. The train station where the story unfolds exists as a non-place, a transit point between Barcelona and Madrid where people pause but do not stay, emphasizing the transient nature of the couple’s relationship and their inability to commit to any permanent decision or destination. Hemingway’s minimalist description of this landscape—eschewing elaborate detail for stark, simple observations—creates a sense of existential exposure, as if the characters have nowhere to hide from the truth of their situation. The openness of the Spanish countryside strips away the social buffers and distractions that might exist in an urban American setting, forcing the characters into an uncomfortable confrontation with their crisis (Kozikowski, 1993).
Language Barriers and Cultural Displacement
The linguistic dimension of the Spanish setting functions as a crucial element in the story’s exploration of communication failure. Throughout “Hills Like White Elephants,” the couple’s dialogue is punctuated by their interactions with the Spanish-speaking woman who serves them drinks. The American man must communicate in broken Spanish—”Dos cervezas” and later “Dos Anis del Toro”—highlighting the characters’ status as linguistic and cultural outsiders. This language barrier serves as a metaphor for the more profound communication breakdown between the man and Jig themselves. Just as they cannot fully communicate with the Spanish people around them, they cannot honestly and directly communicate with each other about the pregnancy and abortion (Weeks, 1980). The man’s limited Spanish vocabulary contrasts with the complexity of the emotional conversation they are attempting to have, suggesting that some human experiences and conflicts resist simple translation or expression.
The foreignness of the setting amplifies the couple’s isolation and emphasizes their inability to connect meaningfully with the world around them or with each other. Unlike a story set in America where they might be surrounded by familiar cultural references, social networks, and shared linguistic frameworks, the Spanish setting strips away these contextual supports. This displacement creates what literary scholars have termed “Hemingway’s geography of absence,” where characters exist in spaces that lack the familiar anchors of home, thereby intensifying their internal conflicts (Beegel, 1996). The story never provides the characters’ surnames or detailed backgrounds, but their identification as “the American” and the Spanish-speaking environment make their national identity significant. The couple’s expatriate status suggests a willingness to live outside conventional boundaries, yet ironically, they face a deeply conventional crisis—an unwanted pregnancy—that requires them to make a decision with permanent consequences. The Spanish setting, therefore, embodies the paradox of expatriate existence: seeking freedom from social constraints while remaining bound by fundamental human dilemmas that transcend geography.
The Train Station as Liminal Space
The Ebro Valley train station operates as a perfect example of what anthropologists call a liminal space—a threshold between two states of being where normal rules are suspended and transformation becomes possible. For American expatriates, Spain itself functioned as this kind of transitional territory, a place between the America they left behind and the European identity they could never fully claim. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the train station intensifies this liminality. The couple is literally between destinations, waiting for the express train to Madrid, and metaphorically between two possible futures—one with a child and one without (Smiley, 1988). The forty-minute wait at the station becomes a compressed timeframe within which they must resolve or at least address their crisis, yet the setting’s transient nature undermines any possibility of resolution. People in train stations are always leaving; nothing is permanent, and commitments are postponed until arrival at the final destination.
Hemingway’s expatriate experience informed his understanding of how physical spaces shape psychological states. Living in Spain and other European locations, Hemingway observed how displacement from one’s homeland creates a particular kind of existential condition—a sense of being perpetually in transit, never quite arriving at a place of belonging or certainty. The train station setting captures this perfectly, as does the couple’s consumption of alcohol throughout their brief stop. They order beer, then Anis del Toro, sampling Spanish drinks as casual tourists might, yet unable to truly experience or engage with Spanish culture in any meaningful way. Their relationship with Spain is superficial and consumerist—they take what the country offers (drinks, privacy, distance from judgment) without integration or understanding. This superficiality reflects a broader critique of expatriate culture, where Americans abroad sometimes mistook geographical displacement for genuine transformation or escape from their problems. The Spanish setting reveals that fundamental human conflicts—about relationships, responsibility, and identity—travel with individuals regardless of location (Hannum, 1994).
Moral Ambiguity and the Absence of American Social Structures
One of the most significant aspects of the Spanish setting in “Hills Like White Elephants” is the moral ambiguity it enables. In 1920s America, abortion was illegal and heavily stigmatized, embedded within a rigid framework of Christian morality and social consequences. By placing his characters in Spain, Hemingway removes them from the immediate pressure of American social judgment while still maintaining the internal moral conflict. Spain, particularly for non-Catholic American visitors, represented a space where different rules applied, where one might access services or make choices that would be impossible or far more complicated in the United States. The story never explicitly uses the word “abortion,” instead employing euphemisms like “operation” and “simple thing,” which reflects both the characters’ discomfort with direct naming and the broader cultural taboo surrounding the subject (Hannum, 1994). However, the Spanish setting provides the practical possibility for such an operation to occur, creating the story’s central tension.
The absence of American social structures—family networks, community judgment, religious institutions, and legal frameworks—in the Spanish setting places the moral burden entirely on the individual characters. Without external authorities to dictate the “right” choice, the man and Jig must navigate their decision alone, yet they prove incapable of doing so effectively. The man’s repeated assurances that the operation is “simple” and that “they” will be happy afterward sound hollow against the vast Spanish landscape, which seems to dwarf human concerns and render individual choices both critically important and ultimately insignificant. This moral isolation reflects Hemingway’s broader exploration of post-war ethics, where traditional value systems had been shattered and individuals were left to construct meaning and morality without clear guidelines. The Spanish setting becomes a kind of moral proving ground where characters must demonstrate their capacity for authentic decision-making and genuine communication, challenges at which Hemingway’s expatriate characters frequently fail (Renner, 1995).
The Influence of Spanish Culture on Hemingway’s Narrative Technique
Hemingway’s extensive experience in Spain profoundly influenced his development of the “iceberg theory” or “theory of omission,” which characterizes “Hills Like White Elephants” and much of his fiction. Spanish culture, particularly the art of bullfighting that Hemingway documented in “Death in the Afternoon,” emphasized grace under pressure, stoic dignity, and meaningful action over elaborate expression. These values permeated Hemingway’s prose style, resulting in the severely minimalist dialogue and sparse narration that define “Hills Like White Elephants” (Reynolds, 1989). The story consists almost entirely of dialogue, with minimal physical description and virtually no access to the characters’ internal thoughts. This approach forces readers to interpret meaning from what is said—and more importantly, what is left unsaid—mirroring the interpretive work required when navigating a foreign culture where language barriers and cultural differences necessitate reading between the lines.
The Spanish landscape’s stark visual quality translates into Hemingway’s equally stark prose. Just as the Ebro Valley presents clear contrasts—white hills versus green fields, barrenness versus fertility, shadow versus light—Hemingway’s narrative technique presents information without interpretive guidance, allowing readers to construct meaning from juxtaposed elements. This stylistic choice reflects not only Spanish aesthetic influences but also the expatriate experience of constructing meaning in unfamiliar environments without the comfortable certainties of home culture. American readers of the 1920s would have recognized the story’s Spanish setting as inherently exotic and morally complex, a place where different possibilities existed than in Prohibition-era, conservative America. By refusing to provide explicit moral judgment or clear resolution, Hemingway challenges readers to engage with the story’s ethical dimensions as his characters must engage with their dilemma—without easy answers or external authority to provide direction (Kozikowski, 1993).
Conclusion: Spain as Essential Element
The Spanish setting of “Hills Like White Elephants” is not incidental background but an essential component of the story’s meaning and impact. For American expatriates of the 1920s, Spain represented both liberation from restrictive social conventions and confrontation with profound isolation and moral ambiguity. Hemingway uses the Ebro Valley landscape, the train station’s liminal space, language barriers, and the distance from American cultural frameworks to create a story that explores fundamental questions about communication, responsibility, and authentic human connection. The barren Spanish hills and the transient nature of the setting mirror the emotional sterility and uncertainty that characterize the couple’s relationship, while the freedom from American social structures reveals the characters’ inability to make meaningful decisions even when granted that freedom.
Through this carefully chosen setting, Hemingway captures the paradox of expatriate existence: the search for freedom and authenticity through geographical displacement often reveals that the most significant human conflicts are internal and portable, traveling with individuals regardless of location. The Spanish setting strips away the comfortable illusions that might exist in more familiar surroundings, forcing characters and readers alike to confront uncomfortable truths about communication, commitment, and the consequences of choice. “Hills Like White Elephants” endures as a masterpiece partly because Hemingway understood that setting is never merely a backdrop but a dynamic force that shapes character, conflict, and meaning in profound ways.
References
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Hannum, H. L. (1994). “Jig” shouldn’t have another: Drinking and knowledge in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Studies in Short Fiction, 31(4), 689-697.
Kozikowski, S. (1993). Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Explicator, 52(2), 107-109.
Renner, S. (1995). Moving to the girl’s side of “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Hemingway Review, 15(1), 27-41.
Reynolds, M. S. (1989). Hemingway: The Paris years. Blackwell Publishers.
Smiley, P. (1988). Gender-linked miscommunication in “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Hemingway Review, 8(1), 2-12.
Stoneback, H. R. (1989). Hemingway’s happiest summer—”The wild, wild summer of 1926.” North Dakota Quarterly, 57(3), 184-204.
Weeks, L. E. (1980). Hemingway hills: Symbolism in “Hills Like White Elephants.” Studies in Short Fiction, 17(1), 75-77.