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inds and connecting with the two kinds of feelings of the girl, the hills may stand for the girl’s pregnant somatotype, so she describes the hills in a good mood and undoubtedly she wishes to keep the baby. By contrast, the brown and dry country stands for her somatotype after abortion, so the country is ugly in her minds and she describes it in a disappointed mood. Moreover, in this novel, it can be also said that “white elephant” also stands for the love between the two persons. Actually, as said before, white elephant means good things in somebody’s mind. Here, it can surely means the true love. When the girl deliberately said that the hills look like white elephants, she must want to get the definite answer of the man. In other words, she wants to confirm the man’s true love to her. But she fails. The man doesn’t pay much attention to this metaphor about “white elephants”. Namely, he attaches little importance to the love between them and the baby which is always considered as the fruit of the true love. So at last, the girl said that “They’re lovely hills. They don't really look like white elephants. I just meant the coloring of their skin through the trees." (qtd. in Long Maozhong, Yan Jinglan and Wang Hui 385) It stands for that the girl’s fantasy about love is shattered. Of course, the love also disappears. To sum up, the symbolism of “white elephants” is very successful. D. Characteristic Ending Referring to Hemingway’s writing style, we cannot help but talk about the characteristic ending in his novels. Traditionally, at the end of a novel, the plot should reach its climax and the main figure’s final destiny should be mentioned, even not mentioned directly, but obvious to the reader. For example, in Balzac’s Old Goriot, the ending likes this: It was growing dusk, the damp twilight fretted his nerves; he gazed down into the grave and the tears he shed were drawn from him by the sacred emotion, a single hearted sorrow. When such tears fall on earth, their radiance reaches heaven. And with that tear that fell on Father Goriot’s grave…… He went a few paces further……His eyes turned almost eagerly to the space between the column of the Place Vendome and the cupola of the Invalids; there laid the shinning world that he had wished to reach. He glanced over that humming hive, seeming to draw a foretaste of its honey, and said magniloquently: “Henceforth there is war between us.” And by way of throwing down the glove to Society, Rastignac went to dine with Mme. de Nucingen. (96-97) Father Goriot, the main figure, is dead. And Eugene Rastignac, a poor law student, who is always making up his mind to go out into the genteel society to seek a protectress, finally abandons his only left good morals and fully throws himself into the ugly genteel society. Here, each figure’s destiny is determined and schemed out by the author. Contrasting with it, it would be better to say that there is no ending in Hemingway’s stories. In Hills Like White Elephants, the story ends up like this: 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 barroom, 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.