Is the title "Hills Like White Elephants" symbolism or a metaphor?

In order for something
to be a symbol, it must be have both literal meaning and figurative
meaning. Therefore, there would actually have to be white elephants present
in some literal way, and then they'd have to carry some figurative meaning on top of that (such
as referring to something that is generally unwanted, or a burden, as other educators have
said), in order to function as a symbol. Since there is no literal white
elephant, it is not a symbol.

That being said, a
is, technically speaking, literal, because a simile only says that
something is like or as something else, not that it
is something else (as a does). If the title
of the story were "The Hills Are White Elephants," this would be a clear-cut
metaphor). At the same time, however, I have sometimes seen the simile, as a , lumped in under
the broader category of "metaphor" because similes are similar to, though less
powerful than, strict metaphors. Therefore, if you are only given two optionseither symbolic or
metaphoricalI would place the title in the metaphorical category.