Hills like White Elephants

Before I get into analyzing the story Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, let me explain a little context of the situation. I was going onto ecampus to do my reading before class, and when I was scrolling down to find the reading, the name Hills like White Elephants caught my eye. This is the exact same title a song that I like, and I was a bit curious to see if they had anything in common, so I read it. Now I am not comparing the two, I just wanted to explain how I stumbled upon this story. The story starts out in a train station, with a man and a woman ordering some drinks on a hot day. The woman comments that the hills looks like white elephants, to which the male responds that hes never seen a white elephants, and the female further comments that he wouldn't have. I thought this was kind of weird that she would say something like that so I looked up the phrase "hills like white elephants" because I had never heard of that phrase before. It ends up that a white elephant is used to represent something that isn't wanted. After a conversation about how they should enjoy themselves the girl takes back her statement and says that the hills no longer look like white elephants to her. After a little more small talk the male tells the female he wants her to have a operation. While in the whole story they never specify what the operation is, they talk about it a lot, which was frustrating because I felt like if i knew, it would make the story more complete. The male tries to tell her that the operation isn't a big thing, and that "It’s not really an operation at all.". The rest of the story the male is trying to get her to have the operation. He tells her that if she has it they could do anything they wanted, that everything will be back to the way it was after. She tells him that she doesn't want to talk about the operation anymore, and she makes the male promise her that he will stop talking to her about it. Afterward they order one more drink and the train comes and they are off. While the story was complete, I felt like I was missing something. I felt that if i knew what the operation was, that the story would be complete. After reading it again, I narrowed it down by realizing its an operation that a female was having, It wasn't a serious one, rather it was one that would make her ... normal ... again. Now there are very few operations that are not serious, and even fewer that make you normal again. After this I realized it could only be one thing. She was talking about an abortion. It made so much sense now, at the begging of the story she said that the hills looks like white elephants, and what she really meant was that the baby was her white elephant, something she didn't want. After thinking about it a little she realizes that she wants to have the baby, all the while the male tries to convince her that she should have the abortion, that their is so much more left to do in their life. The story felt so much more complete after I recognized this. I rather enjoyed this little puzzle. The author laid everything out, but left one small detail out so that the story still made sense, but then again also felt as if it was missing a small part of it that left it from being truly complete.