No White Elephants for Me

It is interesting that the symbolism in Hemingway's work starts before the very first line.  Webster's definition of a "white elephant" is "a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit."  The idea itself is thought to stem from ancient beliefs.  In native cultures of Africa, a white elephant was considered to be a symbol for god and when one was gifted with such an elephant, one was expected to care for it its entire life.  The problem lies in that such an elephant would live a very long time and require a great deal of food and care.  Thus, such a "gift" was not really wanted at all, as it would drain valuable assets from the receiver.  It is also possible that it is related to Indian culture, which values the white elephant as the form of Buddha when he enters the world, according to the Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist litany.   In Thailand, elephants were used as work animals, like a quarter horse.   The white elephants were considered to be sacred, though!  So if one was born to a farmer he had to care for it but received no work out of it.  Around 1800, P.T. Barnum heard about white elephants in India and decided to purchase one for his show.  However, when the elephant arrived, it had pink splotches on its coat and was not white at all.  Thus, he could not display the elephant as he had anticipated, but could not get rid of it because of how much he had paid for it. (These last two roots were from an etymology website, found at rootsweb.com.)  It is difficult to tell which of these is the root of this meaning of the term white elephant. 
 

This meaning is important to the symbolism of the story because this unwanted pregnancy could be a white elephant.  Hardly anything a person can undertake could be more costly and all-consuming than parenthood, certainly.  The question remains whether the reward is greater than this cost.  Obviously, to the man, no reward would exceed the cost.  The baby ("it") means nothing to him, although he claims to care for its mother.  The tension lies in whether Jig believes this baby could be rewarding (everything,) rather than after they "let the air in," and there is "nothing."

When one imagines the hills of which Hemingway speaks, the mental imagery is similar to that of a pregnant woman's stretched stomach.  Jig herself refers to them as having "skin."  These hills are near a river, the symbol of rich fertility, like a fertile woman.  On one side, the valley is lush and covered with greenery.  The other side is barren and dark.  The train track represents not only the presence and absence of life (the pregnancy), but also the two directions of the decision (there is no going back to the way things were, despite the assertions of the man to the contrary).

The number "two" is used throughout the story.  The most obvious use comes at the beginning of the story when Hemingway asserts that the train will stop for two minutes before leaving the station.  Most train stops are much longer than two minutes, so this is an apparent attempt at adding a time factor to the existing tension and mentioning the word "two" again.  Even when the word two is not used, a dichotomy is present between almost every object and character in the story.  Jig and the American are separated from the rest of the waiting passengers by the beaded curtain, creating two groups.  They are served two beers, on two felt pads.  They have two pieces of luggage.  The train tracks go in two directions, and between two different sides, the barren side of the valley and the lush fertile side.  The man orders two Anis del Toro.  The girl holds out her hand and takes two beads of the beaded curtain.  The overuse of the number two has two possible interpretations.  The "two" could refer to Jig and her baby as two persons in one.  More likely, it refers to Jig and the American as a couple.  Each time reiterating that there are two and not three persons in their relationship is driving home the outcome of the abortion.  The couple themselves, a man and a girl, represent the male and female - two genders.

The train in the story could represent the outcome of their decision.  A train can only go two ways on a track, just as the track of their lives can go in one of two directions.  At the end of the story, the man goes to look down the track for the train and sees none.  I believe this is a metaphor for their lack of a decision.  The train represents the answer to their disagreement, and no answer is forthcoming.  When the man looks around at the other passengers and sees that they are happily waiting for the train, this highlights the difference (dichotomy) between the lovers and their counterparts, who have no conflict to consider.

The decision itself is unchangeable.  Jig herself says "once they take it away, you never get it back."  The train denotes a physical journey to represent their emotional journey.  There is no going back once one has boarded a train.  It stops at the next station, just as there is no going back once one has an abortion.  Jig wistfully claims that they could have everything, but the man does not "care anything about it."  When Jig looks off at the mountains, she is looking into the future.  She knows that things can never be the same, but nonetheless she accepts the man's word that it will be.  Despite her seeming naiveté, she is the wise one in the relationship because she knows having the abortion will not make them happy (as it had not made the other people they knew who had one happy, which she sarcastically reminds the man).

At the end of the story, the man asks her to come into the shade.  I believe this symbolizes Jig coming over to his point of view.  She agrees to board the train, which makes me believe that she went through with the abortion.  A more interesting question would be whether Jig continued her relationship with the man.  He had nothing to offer her but hotel rooms and drinks and it seems that Jig wanted more.  Maybe Jig feels "fine" because she has decided to leave the American.

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--posted with permission of the writer, March, 2004

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