The Hills Like White Elephants_ relationship complexities

I believe that the common thought of The Hills Like White Elephants is that this couple is awkwardly dancing around the topic of The Girl having an abortion. The way that the couple skirts the topic directly, makes their dialog challenging to decipher. However important the discussion of the abortion is, if you can really call it a discussion, the underlying theme is obviously a lack of stability and comfort within their relationship. The relationship feels forced, lonely, and empty throughout their dialog. “What is keeping this couple together?” kept running through my head. No doubt relationships are not always “on” 100% of the time, sometimes no one has anything to say and that’s okay, but forced conversation made this couple seem as though they were on an awkward first date, not in a committed relationship. The dialog expressed no love even when they talk of love, and loving each other, those words seem to hold no weight, no real meaning.

It made me really sad reading this and thinking about the complexities of human relationships. Why do people do this to themselves? The Girl and the American seemed so miserable, but neither seemed to care enough about themselves to do anything about it. Why do people do this. Why stay together if there is nothing there to keep you together. The American and the Girl were trying and failing at communicating about the only thing that could hold them together, the unborn. My heart broke for both of these characters. At the end, no one has anything.