<P> The story focuses on a conversation between an American man and a woman at a Spanish train station while waiting for a train to Madrid . The woman compares the nearby hills to white elephants . The pair indirectly discuss an "operation" that the man apparently wants the woman to have, which is implied to be an abortion . </P> <P> "They look like white elephants," she said . "I've never seen one," the man drank his beer . "No, you wouldn't have ." "I might have," the man said . "Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything ." The girl looked at the bead curtain . "They've painted something on it," she said . "What does it say?" "Anis del Toro . It's a drink ." "Could we try it?" </P> <P> The reader must interpret their dialogue and body language to infer their backgrounds and their attitudes with respect to the situation at hand, and their attitudes toward one another . From the outset of the story, the contentious nature of the couple's conversation indicates resentment and unease . Some critics have written that the dialogue is a distillation of the contrasts between stereotypical male and female relationship roles: in the excerpt above, for instance, the woman draws the comparison with white elephants, but the hyper - rational male immediately denies it, dissolving the bit of poetry into objective realism with "I've never seen one ." By saying, "No, you wouldn't have" she implies he hadn't had a child before, or hadn't allowed birth in the past . She also asks his permission to order a drink . Throughout the story, the woman is distant; the American is rational . There may be more serious problems with the relationship than the purely circumstantial . While most critics have espoused relatively straightforward interpretations of the dialogue, a few have argued for alternate scenarios . </P>

What is the white elephant in hills like white elephants