Ernest Hemingway (1927) — a station in Spain, forty minutes till the train, and a conversation about something that is never named.
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Before we read, let's unlock the words you'll need. Think first — the Reveal only confirms.
Read each sentence aloud and say what the bold word means from the rest of the sentence. Then reveal.
These words live inside fixed phrases. Say the missing word, then reveal.
One sentence, three options. Say a, b or c — then reveal.
This story is still in copyright in most of the world, so here it is retold in three parts; the phrases in quotation marks are Hemingway's own. It is almost entirely dialogue, and the thing they are discussing is never named. Read each part; after it, try the quick check from memory, then talk about the question.
A railway junction in the Ebro valley, Spain, in the heat of the afternoon. On one side of the station the hills are long and white; on this side there is no shade and no trees. An American man and a girl sit at a table outside the bar, behind a bead curtain that keeps out the flies. The express from Barcelona is due in forty minutes; it will stop for two minutes and go on to Madrid.
They order two large beers. The girl looks at the hills and says they look like white elephants. The man, drinking, says he has never seen one — and when she says he wouldn't have, he takes it as an accusation. Already the conversation has an edge. She notices something painted on the curtain: a drink, Anis del Toro. They try it. It tastes of liquorice, she says — like everything you have waited a long time for. He tells her to cut it out; she says she was only being amused, that she was having a fine time. That, she adds, is all they do: look at things and try new drinks.
She takes the white elephants back. They are lovely hills, she says; she only meant the colour of their skin through the trees. They order another drink. The warm wind blows the curtain against the table.
1. Where are the two people, and what are they waiting for?
2. What does the girl say the hills look like, and how does the man react?
1. At a small railway junction in the Ebro valley in Spain, in the heat, waiting forty minutes for the express from Barcelona to Madrid.
2. Like white elephants. He says he has never seen one, and when she says he wouldn't have, he becomes defensive — the first sign that the conversation is really about something else.
Then the man says it. It is really an "awfully simple operation", he says — not really an operation at all, just to let the air in. He will go with her and stay with her the whole time; afterwards it is all perfectly natural. The girl says nothing. She looks at the ground under the table.
She asks what they will do afterwards. They will be fine afterwards, he says, just as they were before — because this is the only thing that has made them unhappy. She takes hold of two strings of the bead curtain. She asks whether he really thinks they will be happy. He knows they will; he has known lots of people who have done it. So has she, she says — and afterwards they were all so happy.
He retreats: if she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to; he wouldn't have her do it if she didn't want to. But he knows it's perfectly simple. She presses him: if she does it, will things be as they were, will he love her, will he like it again when she says things are like white elephants? He loves her now; he just can't think about it; she knows how he gets when he worries. If she does it, will he never worry? He won't, because it's perfectly simple. Then she'll do it, she says — because she doesn't care about herself. He says he doesn't want her to do it if she feels that way.
The girl gets up and walks to the end of the station. On the far side of the valley there are fields of grain, trees along the river, mountains beyond. A cloud's shadow moves across the grain. They could have all this, she says — they could have everything, and every day they make it more impossible. He says they can have everything, the whole world. No, she says: it isn't theirs any more, and once they take it away you never get it back.
1. How does the man describe the operation, and what does he promise?
2. What does the girl see from the end of the station, and what does she say about it?
1. As 'awfully simple', not really an operation, 'just to let the air in'. He promises to go with her and stay the whole time, and that afterwards they will be fine, as they were before.
2. The fertile side of the valley — grain, trees, the river, mountains. She says they could have all this, everything, but every day they make it more impossible; once 'they' take it away you never get it back.
He tells her to come back into the shade; she mustn't feel that way. She doesn't feel any way, she says — she just knows things. He begins again: he doesn't want her to do anything she doesn't want to do; she's got to realise — and she cuts in: she realises. Couldn't they maybe stop talking?
They sit. He starts once more: he doesn't want her to do it if she doesn't want to; he's perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to her. Doesn't it mean anything to him, she asks — they could get along. Of course it does, he says; but he doesn't want anybody but her, and he knows it's perfectly simple. Yes, she says: he knows it's perfectly simple. Would he do something for her? He would do anything. Then would he please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking.
He looks at their bags against the wall, covered in labels from all the hotels where they have spent nights. He says he doesn't want her to; he doesn't care anything about it. She says she will scream. The woman from the bar brings two more beers and says the train is coming in five minutes. The girl smiles brightly at her.
The man carries the bags round to the other platform. He cannot see the train. On his way back he stops in the bar for an anis and looks at the people waiting; they are all waiting reasonably for the train. He goes out through the curtain. She is sitting at the table, and she smiles at him. Does she feel better? "I feel fine," she says. There is nothing wrong with her. She feels fine.
1. What does the girl finally ask him to do, and how many times does she say 'please'?
2. What does the man notice in the bar, and how does the story end?
1. To stop talking — she says 'please' seven times, and then says she will scream.
2. That the other people are all 'waiting reasonably' for the train. He comes back; she smiles and says she feels fine, there is nothing wrong with her.
Nobody in this story gives an order. The man never says do it; the girl never says no. And yet it is one of the most brutal arguments in American fiction. The weapons are modal verbs and polite formulas — the same ones you use every day.
One each, from: don't have to · mustn't · 've got to · 'd rather · would you please.
1. "You do it if you don't want to," he said — for the fourth time.
2. "You feel that way," he said. "Come back into the shade."
3. "You realise that I only want what's best for us."
4. " stop talking?" she said. "Please."
5. "I not discuss it here," she said, and looked at the hills.
1. don't have to
2. mustn't
3. 've got to (have got to)
4. Would you please
5. 'd rather (would rather)
Say whether each I'll is a promise, an offer or a threat — then reveal.
1. "I'll go with you and I'll stay with you all the time."
2. "I'll scream."
3. "I'll take the bags over to the other side."
4. "If you say that again, I'll get on the train alone."
5. "I'll love it. I love it now."
1. a promise (used as reassurance — and pressure)
2. a threat
3. an offer (and an escape)
4. a threat
5. a promise — but only about the future, which is the problem
Rewrite each blunt line the way the characters would actually say it. Say your version, then reveal a model.
1. ORDER: "Have the operation." → Make it sound like her choice.
2. ORDER: "Stop feeling sad." → Make it sound like concern.
3. REFUSAL: "No. I won't discuss it." → Make it polite, and final.
4. REFUSAL: "Shut up." → Make it a request that is really an ultimatum.
1. "You don't have to, of course — I just know it's perfectly simple, and I'd be with you the whole time."
2. "You mustn't feel that way. You've got to realise it's the only thing that's been making us unhappy."
3. "I'd rather not talk about it now, if you don't mind."
4. "Would you please — please — stop talking?"
Notice that the 'polite' versions are not gentler. They are harder to argue with.
In the Speak tab you'll play both sides: apply pressure without ever giving an order, and refuse without ever saying no.
Hemingway wrote this in 1927, aged twenty-seven, for the collection Men Without Women, in the years when he was inventing the style that changed English prose: short sentences, no adjectives, no explanation, and the meaning left under the surface like the seven-eighths of an iceberg. He called it the theory of omission — leave out the most important thing, and the reader will feel it more strongly than if it were said. In this story the omitted word is 'abortion'. It never appears.
Everything is in the landscape and the small talk. The valley has two sides: the dry white hills where they sit, and the fertile side with grain and a river, which the girl walks to the end of the platform to look at. 'White elephants' are unwanted gifts too costly to keep. The bags carry labels from all the hotels where they have spent nights — a life of moving on. And the man, alone for a moment in the bar, sees people 'waiting reasonably' for the train, as if reason were something the girl has failed at. The last line has been argued over for a century: 'I feel fine' is either surrender, or a decision she has made without him, or the sound of a woman who has stopped hoping to be understood.
This is the heart of the lesson — do all three out loud. The timer is there to keep you going: fill the time with detail rather than escaping it.
Tell 'Hills Like White Elephants' to someone who has never read it: the station and the heat → the beers and the white elephants → the 'simple operation' → the end of the platform and the far side of the valley → seven pleases → the bags, the bar, 'I feel fine'. Then tell it again in one minute as what is really being said.
Use the language of pressure and refusal, and at least five key words (junction, reassure, coax, resigned, go through with, get along, ultimatum, subtext, evasive, sarcasm).
Take a position: by the end of the conversation the man has got what he wanted — or the girl has. Argue it from the lines: who controls the subject, who changes the subject, who is silenced, who smiles. Then argue the other side for one minute.
Perform or narrate a conversation in which the real subject is never named, and one person is applying pressure while pretending not to. Use only the polite formulas — no orders, no 'no'. Then say what was really being discussed.
Stuck for an idea? Pick one of these and run with it: