Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
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It’s rare that we can’t use one of Booker’s Seven Basic Plots to shed new light on a story. But "Hills Like White Elephants" is a revolutionary approach to story writing—and perhaps even a reaction against stories that fit into traditional plot structures.
Most stories have a beginning, middle, and end, but this one seems to have erased the "beginning" and "end" bits and left us suspended in middle limbo. All we get is conversation between two unhappily coupled individuals—we don't know whether they stay together, and we don't know whether they were ever happy to begin with.
If anything, "Hills Like White Elephants" can be seen as a stage in one of Booker’s Seven. But which of these plots the story fits into would depend on what happened before its characters got to the train station...and what happens after they leave.