In the following essay, Weeks discusses the imagery and symbolism in "Hills Like White Elephants," focusing specifically on the image suggested by the title.

Although subject, setting, point of view, characterization, dialog, irony, and compression all make "Hills Like White Elephants" one of Hemingway's most brilliant short stories, the symbolism implicit in the title and developed in the story contributes more than any other single quality to the powerful impact.

Emphasis by position and repetition clearly suggests the importance Hemingway attached to the comparison. Besides the reference in the title, there are, within this very short three-page story, two references to the whiteness of the hills and four to them as white elephants, although one of these suggests that the hills do not look like white elephants but only have their coloring.

On first reading the title, one assumes the comparison may merely be to the color...