"Come on back in the shade,"he said."You mustn't feel that way."
"I don't feel any way,"the girl said."I just know things."
"I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do—"
"Nor that isn't good for me,"she said."I know.Could we have another beer?"
"All right.But you've got to realize—"
"I realize,"the girl said."Can't we maybe stop talking?"
They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table.
"You've got to realize,"he said,"that I don't want you to do it if you don't want to.I'm perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you."
"Doesn't it mean anything to you?We could get along."
"Of course it does.But I don't want anybody but you.I don't want anyone else.And I know it's perfectly simple."
"Yes,you know it's perfectly simple."
"It's all right for you to say that,but I do know it."
"Would you do something for me now?"
"I'd do anything for you."
"Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?"
He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station.There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.
"But I don't want you to,"he said,"I don't care anything about it."
"I'll scream,"the girl said.
The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads."The train comes in five minutes,"she said.
"What did she say?"asked the girl.
"That the train is coming in five minutes."
The girl smiled brightly at the woman,to thank her.
"I'd better take the bags over to the other side of the station,"the man said.She smiled at him.
"All right.Then come back and we'll finish the beer."
He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks.He looked up the tracks but could not see the train.Coming back,he walked through the bar-room,where people waiting for the train were drinking.He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people.They were all waiting reasonably for the train.He went out through the bead curtain.She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.
"Do you feel better?"he asked.
"I feel fine,"she said."There's nothing wrong with me.I feel fine."
"Hills Like White Elephants"is a one-scene story set in a small Spanish railway station with two characters,an American and the girl with him,talking about something while waiting for a train to Madrid.What they talk about concerns the girl's pregnancy and the man's proposal for abortion.The girl wants to keep the child,but the man desires to get rid of it.In his refusal to keep the child and marry her,the girl comes to understand that the man wants nothing but the relationship.On the surface,they quarrel over the issue of abortion,but deep down it is the nature of their relationship that gives rise to their argument.By the time the story comes to the end,the girl realizes that the man does not love her as much as he claims to or as she imagined（he remains the same throughout the story,insisting on his proposal for abortion）,and she subsequently changes her attitude toward him.
2.Setting
Setting is commonly referred to the physical place and time in which the action of a story takes place.Every story necessarily unfolds at a place and in time.Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities takes place in the eighteenth century Britain and France,Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the nineteenth century America,and Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter in a small British colonial outpost in Sierra Leone during World WarⅡ.
Setting contributes to and,very often,determines the development of a story.The issue of race,for example,is more contentious in the nineteenth century in Missouri,an American Southern state,where slavery was institutionalized and where lives Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn,whose moral dilemma as to whether to help the slave Jim to run away is made excruciatingly acute.Stories without sharp sense of time and place ring hollow and artificial,and are therefore fishy and improbable.
Writers often present setting through deion.Deion represents in words our sensory impressions caught in a moment of time.In this definition,two important features of deion are called to our attention:sensory impressions and stillness（caught in a moment of time）.Let's look at the following example,part of a letter Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother,Theo,which well illustrates these two qualities of deion.
Twilight is falling,and the view of the yard from my window is simply wonderful,with that little avenue of poplars—their slender forms and thin branches stand out so delicately against the gray evening sky;and then the old arsenal building in the water—quiet as the"waters of the old pool"in the book of Isaiah—down by the waterside the walls of that arsenal are quite green and weather-beaten.Farther down is the little garden and the fence around it with the rosebushes,and everywhere in the yard the black figures of the workmen,and also the little dog.Just now Uncle Jan with his long black hair is probably making his rounds.In the distance the masts of the ships in the dock can be seen,in front the Atjeh,quite black,and the gray and red monitors—and just now here and there the lamps are being lit.At this moment the bell is ringing and the whole stream of workmen is pouring towards the gate;at the same time the lamplighter is coming to light the lamp in the yard behind the house.