How Do Weather and Climate Function Symbolically in “Hills Like White Elephants”? A Complete Analysis
Author: MARTIN MUNYAO MUINDE
Email: Ephantusmartin@gmail.com
Direct Answer
Weather and climate in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” function as multifaceted symbols that reflect the emotional landscape of the characters, represent the sterility or fertility of their choices, and establish atmospheric tension throughout the narrative. The oppressive heat of the Spanish setting symbolizes the uncomfortable pressure and tension surrounding the couple’s decision about abortion, creating a physical environment that mirrors their psychological distress. The absence of shade and trees on one side of the station represents barrenness and emotional aridity, paralleling the American man’s desire to eliminate the pregnancy and maintain a sterile, responsibility-free lifestyle. Conversely, the fertile fields with trees and the river visible on the opposite side symbolize natural growth, life-giving forces, and the potential for nurturing new life. The story’s emphasis on sunlight, shadow, and the characters’ physical discomfort in the heat creates a climate of urgency and exposure where nothing can remain hidden or comfortable. The dry, harsh environment reflects the emotional drought in their relationship and the life-denying choice the American advocates, while hints of water and fertility represent alternative possibilities that remain largely unexplored. Through these climatic elements, Hemingway creates a symbolic weather system that reinforces thematic concerns about choice, consequences, sterility versus fertility, and the relationship between human decisions and natural processes.
Introduction: Hemingway’s Atmospheric Storytelling
Ernest Hemingway’s mastery of economical prose extends to his strategic use of environmental details, where every description of weather, landscape, and climate serves multiple narrative and symbolic functions. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” published in 1927, Hemingway sets his story of a couple debating abortion in the hot, dry Spanish countryside during what appears to be the height of summer. The story’s opening immediately establishes the climatic conditions: “The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun” (Hemingway, 1927, p. 211). This description of heat, exposure, and absence of shade sets the atmospheric tone for the entire narrative, creating an environment that reflects and reinforces the story’s emotional tensions.
Weather and climate in literature often function symbolically, representing characters’ internal states, foreshadowing events, or establishing mood and atmosphere. Classic examples include the storm in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” that mirrors Lear’s mental turmoil, or the oppressive heat in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” that intensifies dramatic tension. Hemingway’s use of weather follows this tradition while maintaining his characteristic restraint and subtlety. Rather than explicitly connecting climatic conditions to emotional states, he presents precise environmental details that readers can interpret as symbolic parallels to the characters’ situation. Stewart (1963) notes that Hemingway’s landscapes are never merely decorative but always functional, contributing to meaning through careful selection and arrangement of details. The weather and climate in “Hills Like White Elephants” exemplify this principle, creating a symbolic environment where heat, drought, shade, and fertility operate as meaningful elements that deepen readers’ understanding of the characters’ conflict and the story’s thematic concerns about life, death, sterility, and choice.
The Oppressive Heat: Discomfort and Pressure
Physical Heat as Psychological Tension
The story emphasizes the intense heat of the Spanish setting through repeated references to sun, lack of shade, and the characters’ responses to the uncomfortable temperature. The opening description establishes that “there was no shade and no trees” on the side of the station where the hills are visible, immediately creating an environment of exposure and discomfort (Hemingway, 1927, p. 211). The couple sits “at a table in the shade, outside the building,” seeking relief from the sun’s intensity, suggesting they are trying to find comfort in an inherently uncomfortable situation. The woman later comments on the heat when she says “I wanted to try this new drink. That’s all we do, isn’t it—look at things and try new drinks?” after tasting the Anis del Toro, linking the heat’s discomfort to their attempt to distract themselves from their serious conversation (Hemingway, 1927, p. 212).
The oppressive heat functions symbolically as an externalization of the psychological pressure and tension the couple experiences. Just as the sun’s intensity makes physical comfort difficult to achieve and sustain, the pregnancy and impending decision create emotional discomfort that cannot be fully escaped or relieved. Renner (1995) argues that Hemingway’s environmental details consistently reflect the characters’ emotional states, with the heat representing the pressure the American applies to Jig to agree to the abortion. The sun’s relentless presence—there is no indication of clouds, shade naturally occurring, or relief from the heat—mirrors the relentless nature of their situation and the urgency of the decision they must make. The discomfort of sitting in intense heat parallels the discomfort of their conversation, where neither character can find a position that feels genuinely comfortable or satisfactory. The heat also creates a sense of lethargy and exhaustion that pervades the story—the characters order drinks repeatedly partly to cool themselves, and their conversation circles repetitively rather than progressing directly, as though the heat saps their energy for direct confrontation. This symbolic function makes the climate an active participant in the story’s meaning rather than merely a backdrop, with the oppressive heat representing all the forces—biological, social, emotional, relational—that pressure the couple toward a decision they seem unready to make.
Heat and Sterility
The dry heat of the Spanish setting also carries symbolic associations with sterility, aridity, and life-denying conditions. Extreme heat without adequate water creates desert conditions where life struggles to survive and reproduction becomes difficult. The landscape description emphasizes this aridity: the hills are “long and white,” suggesting bleached, sun-scorched earth rather than the green vitality of well-watered terrain. The absence of trees and shade on one side of the station reinforces this impression of a harsh, inhospitable environment where nothing grows easily. This climatic symbolism connects directly to the story’s central conflict about pregnancy and abortion—the American’s desire to terminate the pregnancy aligns symbolically with the sterile, life-denying heat that dominates the setting.
O’Brien (1990) observes that the story’s environmental details create symbolic parallels to the couple’s choices, with the dry, barren landscape representing the path of abortion and continued childlessness that the American advocates. The heat that creates these barren conditions thus symbolizes the forces—social, economic, relational—that pressure women toward abortion rather than supporting them in carrying pregnancies to term. The 1920s context of illegal abortion, limited birth control, social stigma against unmarried mothers, and economic dependence of women on men created conditions where pregnancy outside marriage often led to either dangerous illegal abortion or devastating social consequences. The story’s climate of harsh heat without relief mirrors these harsh social conditions that made pregnancy a burden rather than a celebration for women in circumstances like Jig’s. The symbolic sterility of the heat-scorched landscape thus represents not just the American’s individual desire to avoid parenthood but also broader cultural attitudes that treated pregnancy as a problem to be solved rather than a natural process to be supported. The oppressive heat becomes a symbol of life-denying forces—both personal and cultural—that work against fertility, growth, and the nurturing of new life.
Shade and Shadow: Seeking Relief and Protection
The Limited Shade at the Station
The characters’ position “at a table in the shade, outside the building” represents their attempt to find temporary relief from the oppressive conditions surrounding them (Hemingway, 1927, p. 211). However, the shade they occupy is limited and precarious—it exists only because of the station building’s shadow, and shadows move as the sun travels across the sky, meaning their refuge from the heat is temporary. This detail carries symbolic weight regarding the couple’s situation: they are seeking relief from the pressure and discomfort of their circumstances, but the relief available is limited, temporary, and insufficient to address the fundamental problem they face.
The shade’s temporary nature symbolizes the impossibility of indefinitely avoiding their decision. Just as the sun’s movement will eventually eliminate their shaded position, forcing them to move or endure direct sunlight, the biological and temporal constraints of pregnancy will force them to make a decision—postponement is possible only temporarily. Johnston (1987) notes that Hemingway’s attention to precise environmental details often carries temporal symbolism, with changing light and shadow marking time’s passage. The shade where the couple sits represents a liminal space of temporary protection, much like the train station itself represents a temporary stopping point between departure and destination. They can rest in the shade briefly, can order drinks and talk, but eventually they must leave this protected space and move forward into the harsh light of decision and consequence. The limited shade thus symbolizes all temporary refuges and escapes—the drinks they consume, the superficial conversation they engage in, the distractions they attempt—that provide brief relief but cannot address or resolve the fundamental issue they confront. The shade’s existence acknowledges the human need for respite from relentless pressure, but its limitations acknowledge that some pressures cannot be permanently escaped, only temporarily avoided.
Darkness and the Bar’s Interior
When the American goes into the bar to arrange for their luggage, he moves from the outdoor shade into the building’s interior, entering a darker space away from the bright sunlight. This movement from light to shadow, from open air to enclosed space, carries symbolic resonance regarding truth, visibility, and hiding. The bright sunlight outside represents exposure—everything is visible, nothing can be hidden, and the harsh light reveals all details clearly. The darker interior represents a space of concealment and privacy where certain things can be discussed or arranged away from public view. The American uses this private space to handle practical arrangements, suggesting his preference for managing difficult matters away from direct exposure.
Kozikowski (1987) interprets the story’s play of light and shadow as symbolic of the couple’s attempts to avoid confronting their situation directly. The shade and interior darkness represent evasion and indirect approaches, while the bright sunlight represents the unavoidable reality they must eventually face. The American’s rhetoric throughout the conversation attempts to keep their discussion in symbolic shadow—using euphemisms, indirect language, and false reassurances rather than acknowledging the full reality and significance of what they are discussing. Jig’s movements between the shaded table, the end of the station platform (where she presumably stands in sunlight to view the hills), and through the bar to see the fertile valley suggest her attempt to gain different perspectives, to move between shadow and light in search of clarity. The interplay of shade and bright light thus symbolizes the tension between facing difficult realities directly and seeking relief through avoidance, indirection, and temporary escape. The climate of intense sunlight makes shade both necessary for comfort and insufficient for genuine protection, symbolizing how the couple’s situation demands both acknowledgment and decision but offers no position of complete comfort or safety from which to make such consequential choices.
The Absence of Rain: Drought and Emotional Barrenness
Dry Climate as Emotional Desert
The story’s setting in the dry Spanish countryside during what appears to be summer emphasizes the absence of rain and the resulting aridity. There is no mention of clouds, no suggestion of approaching storms, no relief through precipitation—only relentless sun and dry heat. This climatic condition of drought carries powerful symbolic associations with emotional barrenness, spiritual emptiness, and the absence of nurturing or renewal. Water in literary symbolism traditionally represents life, purification, renewal, and emotional depth, making the absence of rain symbolize the lack of these qualities in the couple’s relationship and situation.
The drought-like conditions mirror the emotional aridity of the American’s position—he wants to eliminate the pregnancy and return to a lifestyle defined by superficial pleasures (traveling, drinking, looking at things) rather than deep connection, commitment, or responsibility. His vision of their future involves no growth, no development, no deepening—just continuation of their current wandering existence. This lifestyle, like the drought-stricken landscape, may be sustainable temporarily but ultimately lacks the nourishment and renewal necessary for long-term flourishing. Weeks (1990) argues that the story’s landscape symbolism creates a contrast between life-denying and life-affirming choices, with the dry, rainless climate representing the spiritual and emotional emptiness of refusing commitment, depth, and generative relationship. The absence of rain thus symbolizes the absence of emotional nourishment in the couple’s relationship—they share drinks and superficial conversation but lack deeper connection, mutual understanding, or genuine intimacy. Their relationship exists in a state of emotional drought where nothing new can grow, no renewal occurs, and the constant movement from place to place substitutes for actual development or depth.
The Longing for Water and Relief
While rain is absent from the story’s present moment, references to water appear in the description of the fertile valley visible from the other side of the station: “fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro” (Hemingway, 1927, p. 214). The river Ebro represents the presence of water that enables fertility and growth, contrasting with the dry hills on the opposite side. This contrast between watered and waterless landscapes symbolizes the choice between fertility and sterility, between lives that nurture growth and lives that resist it. The river that makes the grain fields and trees possible represents the life-giving resources—emotional, relational, material—necessary to support new life and growth.
Jig’s walk through the bar to see this fertile landscape suggests her consideration of alternatives to the dry, barren path the American advocates. The water that nourishes the fields and trees symbolizes the support, commitment, and resources that would be necessary to have and raise a child—resources that the American seems unwilling to provide. The absence of rain in their current position, combined with the visibility of the watered valley from another perspective, creates symbolic tension between their present state and alternative possibilities. Smith (1989) interprets water imagery in Hemingway’s work as often representing vitality, authenticity, and connection to natural processes, while drought or absence of water represents alienation from life-giving forces. The climatic condition of rainless heat thus symbolizes the couple’s alienation from generative, life-affirming possibilities—they exist in an emotional and relational drought where the conditions necessary for nurturing new life are absent. Whether this drought is temporary (capable of ending if conditions change) or permanent (an inherent feature of their relationship) remains ambiguous, but the absence of rain in the story’s present moment suggests that the life-denying forces currently dominate their situation.
The Two Landscapes: Contrasting Climatic Symbolism
The Barren Hills Without Shade
The landscape visible from one side of the station—”long and white” hills with “no shade and no trees”—represents an extreme version of the dry, hot climate that dominates the story (Hemingway, 1927, p. 211). This landscape appears almost lunar or desert-like in its barrenness, suggesting an environment hostile to life and growth. The white color of the hills suggests either limestone or sun-bleached earth, indicating soil that retains no moisture and supports minimal vegetation. The explicit absence of shade and trees emphasizes that nothing grows in this environment that could provide shelter, relief, or sustenance—it is a landscape of pure exposure and barrenness.
This barren landscape symbolizes the sterile future that the American envisions and advocates—a life without children, without the complications of family, without roots or commitments. The hills that Jig observes look like white elephants to her, connecting the barren landscape to the pregnancy (the “white elephant” being a traditional metaphor for a burdensome gift). Her observation that they “look like white elephants” followed immediately by noting “They’re lovely hills… They don’t really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees” reveals her ambivalence about how to interpret both the landscape and the pregnancy (Hemingway, 1927, p. 211). The fact that she mentions “trees” when describing hills that have no trees suggests cognitive dissonance or wishful thinking—seeing what she wants to see rather than the barren reality before her. The climatic conditions that create this barren landscape—relentless sun, absence of rain, no protecting shade—symbolize the forces that would make pregnancy and motherhood impossible or unbearable in her circumstances. The barrenness is not inherent to the land itself but rather results from climatic conditions, much as the pregnancy becomes a “white elephant” not inherently but due to the social and relational conditions surrounding it.
The Fertile Valley with Water and Growth
The contrasting landscape visible from the opposite side of the station presents a dramatically different climatic reality: “fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro” flourishing in apparent abundance (Hemingway, 1927, p. 214). This fertile landscape exists in the same geographic region as the barren hills but enjoys different conditions—specifically, access to water from the river that enables cultivation and growth. The grain fields suggest agricultural productivity and human cultivation of natural fertility, while the trees suggest established growth that provides shade, shelter, and continuity across seasons. This landscape represents a life-affirming alternative to the barrenness visible from the other side.
The fertile valley symbolizes the potential for growth, nurturing, and generative life that parenthood represents. The presence of the river—flowing water that sustains life—contrasts with the drought conditions of the barren hills, suggesting that fertility and growth require resources, support, and favorable conditions rather than exposure and deprivation. O’Brien (1990) argues that the story’s geographic and climatic contrasts create a symbolic binary where characters must choose between sterility and fertility, between resisting life and embracing it. The American never sees or comments on this fertile landscape—when he walks to the bar, he apparently does not look toward this view or does not register its significance. His blindness to the fertile alternative symbolizes his inability or refusal to imagine a life that includes parenthood, growth, and the kind of settled existence that agriculture and cultivation represent. Jig, by contrast, walks specifically to view this landscape, suggesting her consideration of this alternative even as she recognizes the barriers to choosing it. The climatic conditions that enable this fertility—adequate water, probably gentler sun filtered through tree shade, soil nurtured by seasonal flooding—symbolize the resources and conditions necessary to support new life: economic security, relational commitment, emotional support, and social acceptance. The existence of this fertile landscape within view but on the opposite side of the station suggests that alternative futures are possible but require choosing a different direction, moving away from the barren path toward the watered valley.
Temperature and Emotional Climate
Heat as Conflict and Tension
The physical temperature of the setting—hot enough that the couple seeks shade, hot enough that cold beer provides significant relief, hot enough that the bright light feels oppressive—mirrors the emotional temperature of their interaction. The conversation between Jig and the American, while superficially calm and indirect, contains underlying tension, frustration, and conflict that occasionally break through the surface politeness. The heat symbolizes this emotional tension, the discomfort that neither character can escape even when they attempt to discuss other topics or distract themselves with drinks and observations about the landscape.
As the conversation progresses, the emotional temperature seems to rise along with their frustration with each other. The American becomes increasingly insistent and manipulative: “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in” (Hemingway, 1927, p. 212). His minimizing language attempts to cool the emotional temperature by making the abortion seem trivial and simple, but his repetition and insistence actually increase the pressure on Jig. Her responses become shorter and more resistant: “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” represents the breaking point where the emotional heat becomes unbearable and she can no longer maintain polite engagement (Hemingway, 1927, p. 214). Fletcher and Catalano (1988) note that the story’s tension builds through repetition and circular conversation that mirrors the oppressive quality of relentless heat—there is no relief, no escape, no cooling breeze of genuine understanding or agreement. The physical climate of persistent heat without relief thus perfectly symbolizes the emotional climate of their relationship and conversation—uncomfortable, oppressive, and exhausting, with no satisfactory resolution available. The heat makes rest impossible even when sitting still, just as their emotional tension makes comfort impossible even when avoiding direct confrontation.
The Cool Refuge of Alcohol
The couple’s repeated ordering of drinks—beer, Anis del Toro, more beer—serves multiple functions, one of which relates to the climatic symbolism of heat and relief. Cold drinks provide temporary physical cooling in the hot environment, offering brief respite from the oppressive temperature. This physical relief parallels the emotional function of alcohol as a means of temporary escape from anxiety, tension, and difficult emotions. The drinking allows them to briefly cool the emotional temperature of their conversation, to pause and distract themselves before returning to the uncomfortable topic they must address.
However, the relief provided by cold drinks, like the shade they sit in, is temporary and insufficient to address the fundamental problem. The drinks can cool them momentarily, can provide mild intoxication that dulls emotional edges, but cannot change the heat of the day or the pressing nature of their decision. Svoboda (1987) discusses how drinking in Hemingway’s fiction often represents attempts to achieve temporary peace or numbness in the face of troubles that cannot be permanently solved through avoidance. The cool drinks in the hot climate symbolize all temporary reliefs and distractions—superficial solutions that provide brief comfort but cannot address underlying problems. The fact that the couple repeatedly orders new drinks suggests both the inadequacy of this relief (it must be constantly renewed) and their desire to extend this temporary respite indefinitely rather than facing the heat of their situation directly. The cool alcohol in the hot day thus symbolizes the tension between the human need for relief and comfort, and the reality that some situations cannot be comfortably resolved but must be endured and addressed despite their difficulty.
Seasonal Symbolism: Summer as Crisis and Decision
The Height of Summer as Critical Moment
While the story does not explicitly state the season, multiple details suggest high summer: intense heat, bright sun, crops growing in the valley, tourist travel through Spain. Summer traditionally symbolizes the height of growth, maturity, and fruition—the season when things that were planted in spring reach their fullness. This seasonal symbolism connects to the pregnancy, which similarly represents something that has been initiated and is developing toward fruition. The summer setting thus emphasizes that the pregnancy has progressed to a point where decision becomes urgent—it is no longer early spring when possibilities are just emerging, but rather the height of summer when the reality is fully present and demanding response.
Summer also represents the peak of intensity before decline—the longest days, the strongest sun, the highest temperatures occur in summer, but this intensity cannot be sustained indefinitely. Autumn will follow, bringing cooling, darkening, and the dying back of growth. This seasonal trajectory symbolizes the temporal pressure on the couple’s decision—the pregnancy is at a stage where it can still be terminated relatively safely (though “safety” in 1920s illegal abortion is relative), but this window will not remain open indefinitely. The summer heat that becomes oppressive at its peak symbolizes how the pregnancy, initially perhaps exciting or concerning, has reached a critical point where its presence dominates their reality and demands resolution. Tetlow (1992) argues that Hemingway often uses seasonal symbolism to suggest stages of life, relationship, or process, with summer representing moments of crisis where accumulated tensions reach breaking points. The story’s summer setting thus positions the couple at such a crisis point—the height of a process that must now resolve one way or another, that cannot continue indefinitely at this intensity.
The Absence of Other Seasons
The story’s restriction to a single moment in summer, with no flashbacks to other seasons or projections into future ones, emphasizes the immediate, present-tense quality of the crisis the couple faces. There is no winter of dormancy, no spring of new beginnings, no autumn of graceful decline—only the intense, relentless summer heat of the present moment. This temporal restriction symbolizes how consequential decisions often feel: the past recedes in importance, the future becomes difficult to imagine, and only the present crisis demands attention and response. The absence of other seasons also suggests the absence of natural cycles and renewal in the couple’s relationship—they exist in a perpetual present without roots in the past or clear development toward a future.
The summer setting without reference to other seasons also symbolizes the interruption of natural cycles that abortion represents. Pregnancy follows a natural seasonal progression from conception through gestation to birth, a cycle that parallels the agricultural seasons of planting, growing, and harvesting. Abortion interrupts this cycle, stopping the natural progression before completion. The story’s focus on a single summer moment, frozen in time at the decision point, mirrors this interruption—the natural cycle is suspended at a critical juncture, waiting for human decision to either allow it to continue or to terminate it. The climatic symbolism of summer heat thus encompasses both the crisis of the present moment and the larger question of relationship to natural cycles and processes. Will the couple respect and support natural fertility cycles, or will they interrupt and resist them? The summer heat provides no answer, only the oppressive atmosphere within which this question must be resolved.
Conclusion: Climate as Character and Symbol
Weather and climate in “Hills Like White Elephants” function as far more than atmospheric backdrop or realistic setting detail—they operate as symbolic systems that reflect, reinforce, and deepen the story’s exploration of choice, consequence, fertility, and relationship. The oppressive heat symbolizes psychological pressure and emotional tension, creating an environment where comfort is impossible and relief is temporary. The absence of rain and the resulting drought symbolize emotional and spiritual barrenness, the life-denying forces that work against growth, commitment, and generative relationship. The contrast between barren, shadeless hills and fertile, watered valleys symbolizes the choice between sterility and fertility, between resisting life and embracing it, between the American’s vision and Jig’s intuitions about alternative possibilities.
The interplay of sun and shade, heat and cooling drinks, exposure and protection creates a symbolic climate where characters seek temporary refuge from relentless pressure while recognizing that ultimate decisions cannot be avoided through momentary escapes. The summer setting emphasizes both the height of crisis and the temporally limited nature of the decision window—some choices must be made within specific timeframes, and postponement eventually becomes impossible. Through these climatic elements, Hemingway creates what might be called weather as character—the environment actively participates in the story’s meaning, shaping possibilities and constraining choices just as surely as the human characters’ actions and words do. The symbolic climate reveals what the characters’ indirect dialogue often conceals: the stakes of their decision, the forces pressuring them, and the fundamental incompatibility between the barren future the American envisions and the fertile alternatives Jig perceives but cannot access within their relationship’s current terms. Understanding how weather and climate function symbolically in the story thus provides essential insight into Hemingway’s artistic method and the story’s complex exploration of human choice, natural processes, and the relationship between environmental conditions and the possibilities for human flourishing.
References
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