Reading Response 8: "Hills Like White Elephants"

In the short story “Hills like White Elephants” I found it to be a very challenging reading. When I read it the first time, I was completely lost. As I started reading it the second time it began to get clearer and clearer to me. It started off giving some background information on the scene in the first paragraph, and then went into the dialogue between the American man and his woman. They seem to have a lot of conflict stimulated between them because in the first couple of lines, they had already gotten into an argument over a comment she made about hills looking like white elephants. She explained to him how she was trying to amuse herself, but he had to get smart with her. His attitude and wanting to be right about everything seemed to be taking a toll on their relationship. He constantly asked her the same things over and over again which was very annoying to her as you could tell by her responses to him. She seemed to be dependent on him for things though especially when they were in the bar ordering drinks. He spoke the language and controlled what she had to drink when he ordered in Spanish. We really didn’t find out much about the woman because it was just said that she accompanied him on their travels. We don’t know her race, or where she’s from. All we know is that she’s a woman. That’s where the mystery is stimulated from. We don’t know much about her except that she’s with him. I liked the story I just wish there was more details about her, because she’s left as a mystery.