Literary Analysis Of Hills Like White Elephants

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In my literary analyst I have chosen to analyze the short story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and also the short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O 'Brien. I have chosen these two short stories because the conflicts in both of the stories are not alike one another. In my literary analysis I hope to identify the conflict, literary techniques, and also similarities and differences between both short stories. The conflict in the story “Hills Like White Elephants” is individual vs individual. The reason why it is individual vs individual is because the man and the women cannot come to an agreement about whether to have an operation or not. The conflict in the story “The Things They Carried” is individual vs self. The …show more content…

In this story the literary technique conflict played a major role in shaping the story altogether. I see this literary element throughout the whole story as the man and the women argue about having an operation or not. The second literary element simile is used in the title “Hills Like White Elephants”. This represents the women’s pregnancy in the story. She uses this simile multiple times throughout the story. The first time she uses it, is to bring up the conversation with her significant other about abortion. The second time she uses it is to throughout the idea of abortion and to stop talking about the subject. This helps shape the argument throughout the short story. The third literary element in the story is the climax of the story. I think that the climax of this story is when jig threatens to scream if the man does not quit talking about the operation. She asked several times for him to quit talking about it, and it finally led up to her threatening to scream over the situation. The climax of the story played a major role in shaping the argument as well, and it also made it clear that the conflict in this short story was individual versus …show more content…

In the story “Hills Like White Elephants” the author addresses the conflict in a third person point of view and is very blunt about what the conflict is. The reason why I think that it is very blunt is because the couple is arguing in the whole short story about whether to have an operation or not. In the story “The Things They Carried” the author talks in a first person point of view and addresses the conflict of individual versus self throughout the story in many different ways, but also talks in a third person point of view to get a different perspective of the war. I think that the author also talks in the third person point of view to possibly distance himself from the internal conflict that is going on with him. I think that both of these short stories use very different literary techniques to help their conflict. In the “Hills Like White Elephants” the author is very blunt about what the conflict is by using literary techniques like conflict. This allows the reader to easily figure out what conflict is going on within the short story. In the “The Things They Carried” the author uses a lot of metaphors and other literary techniques that might try and confuse the reader of what the real internal conflict is. In the story the “Hills Like White Elephants” I don’t think that the conflict was ever resolved. In the story “The Things

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