This would not amount to a hundred words, but I hope it helps.
For almost all of Hemingway's short stories, the reader would always have to deal with some kind of a muted conflict. In fact, everything else is muted, subtle, hinted at. This is one technique always employed by Hemingway. In "Hills Like White Elephants", the main metaphor is the "hills" that look like white elephants to pertain to the girl's pregnancy. The conflict, what the man and the girl are arguing about, is the abortion.
