Henningfeld is an Associate Professor of English at Adrian College, in Adrian, Michigan. She writes widely on literature and history for a variety of academic and educational publishers. In the following essay, she discusses the tragic and comic elements of "Hills Like White Elephants," placing these elements within the context of modernism.

In 1927, Ernest Hemingway completed and published his collection of short stories, Men Without Women. The collection included several important stories, stories that have been closely examined by critics almost since the day of their publication. Among the stories in the collection, however, "Hills Like White Elephants" has become the most widely anthologized and the most frequently taught. The story continues to generate scholarly interest and heated debate among students.

"Hills Like White Elephants" is a very short story. Only about one thousand words, the story itself is comprised almost entirely of dialogue. Although there is...