"Hills Like White Elephants" - Shannon Walsh

In this short story, Hemingway writes in a minimalist style. He does not give detail about the character's inner thoughts and feelings, nor does he interpret any of their actions. Reading this story made me feel as if I was in the setting he describes so well, but only able to overhear and watch the characters. He leaves it all up to the reader to interpret what is going on and what they are talking about. As the reader, we must infer and conclude who these characters are, what their problem is, how an "operation" will fix their problem, and why there is so much tension between them in the scene. This method of minimalist writing seems quite useful as a way to intrigue the reader and keep us reading in hopes of getting some more insight on what is going on. Hemingway writes this story in such a way that what the characters say is not important; what is important is what the characters refuse to blatantly say. The way I interpreted this story is that the "operation" is an abortion. If she has it, then "everything will be nice again" in their relationship, meaning they will not have to deal with the troubles of raising a child. When the girl says, "we could have everything" perhaps she means they could start building a family together. It will be interesting to see how others in the class have interpreted this story to gain different perspectives.