Hemmingway, an author of two masterpieces, Snows of Kilimanjaro and Hills like White Elephants, is a successful writer who aims at pointing out essential ideas through enhanced symbolism, characterization and contrasting themes as a way of conveying the ultimate universal struggle between success and failure. In the Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hemingway points out the battle that people face attain their success in life while pointing out selfish or egocentric ways that Harry uses to acquire wealth from his wife, Helen. The stories use various symbols, characterization and contrasting themes in a dialogue format to help readers to internalize the concepts and incorporate them into the actual life (Hietanen n.p.). On the other hand, the author in Hills Like White Elephants outlines the themes to point out the problems that are resulted by lack of proper communication among people. With the above concepts, this essay seeks to analyze the various pointwise comparison and contrast between the two sets pieces of Hemmingway as a tool for communicating relevant ideas through well-structured elements of communication.
In the two stories, Hemmingway displays similarities in the structure and outline of communication style that is in the form of dialogue. The dialogue between the two masterpieces helps in making the two stories to look like a real character analysis since the use of dialogue helps in carrying the stories along. On the other hand, Hills Like White Elephants does not personify the characters with sufficient details about how they dress and look. Notwithstanding the fact that Hills Like White Elephants does not specify the characters, the Snows of Kilimanjaro is somehow different since stipulates the names of each character alongside a succedent use of dialogue to define the themes (Hemingway n.p). Specifically, the Snows of Kilimanjaro outlines several flashbacks that explain more about Harry and Helens life.
Regarding literacy elements, Hemmingway incorporates some themes within the storyline of Hills Like White Elephants especially symbols to entice the readers with symbols that aspects that may be encountered in daily lives. He uses symbolism to define elements relating to the symbols mainly used in the story concerning Hills Like White Elephants hence developing a fundamental meaning of the story. Additionally, the reader can well be able to reveal the themes in the story by connecting the symbols to typical life situations. For instance, Hemingway (1) outlines specific symbolic aspects in the Hills Like White Elephants like the hills which are interpreted as swollen breasts and the abdomen of a pregnant woman.
Notwithstanding the fact that the woman decides the fate of her baby in the symbolic area, it is sometimes confusing to extract the meaning of why Harry dies in the same area that decided the fate of a young child by the woman in the Hills Like White Elephants (Mohan n.p.). The symbolic area that saved the life of the womans baby and ended up letting Harry who had selfish gains of obtaining money from Helen by pretending to love her shows that it is a neutral ground that values the aspect of humanity since it was like a punishment to Harry for living a life of pretense.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro also outlines details that airs out the symbolic landscape which is described as treacherous but beautiful journey. The snow itself represents the obstacles that human beings face in their everyday lives (Kang 93). The two stories end with a symbolic appeal since Harrys life ends at the land where the woman decided the fate of her Child in the Hills Like White Elephants whereas in the Snows of Kilimanjaro the story ends at the unbelievable white in the square sun top of Kilimanjaro (Willams 88). The two ends are similar hence Hemmingway stories show similarities in the way they end.
Some instances show similarities and differences concerning the weather in the two stories. Even though a shallow view may not point out the relevance of the weather in either of the two Hemmingway stories, a thorough analysis displays that the weather is an outstanding play an essential part in outlining the aspects of symbolism. For instance, in Hills Like White Elephants, there is a symbolic cooling of methods that involved a couple who had been drinking as a way to cool off the heat from their bodies. The symbolic drinking as a way of attaining the desired weather conditions from the uncomfortable hot situations by the couple symbolizes the difficult decision that involves the choice of life and death for the baby. With the worldview of the aspects of abortion, it can be concluded that the couple was trying to make a difficult decision concerning abortion of the child even though Hemmingway did not mention anything concerning abortion. The coordination of the weather conditions and the decision that the couple was making can openly make the reader to conclude the symbolic aspects of weather in the Hills Like White Elephants. The decision symbolically outlines the choice of the woman to save the life of her baby that she makes to stay in the heat.
On the other hand, the Snows of Kilimanjaro also plays a significant role that symbolically uses the weather as a tool to air out essential themes in the story. The snow symbolizes loss or release from the statement, No, you see. It is not snow, and they are all saying that it is not snow and that we were mistaken.and it was snow they tramped along until they died. To symbolize loss, the text finally they lost it all in the snow symbolizes that snow is a symbol of loss and the weather is used to air out important themes in the two Hemmingway stories. The quote finally they lost it all in the snow is about a man who was trapped in the snow of gambling and ended up losing everything he had in life. Just like heat and hot weather conditions were used to air out the aspect of making sound and unsound decisions concerning hot topics in the Hills Like White Elephants, and so does the snow is used as a symbol for stressful life-changing events in the Snows of Kilimanjaro.
Throughout the Hills like White Elephants, the title itself show that there are instances that depict the overall nature of certain characters sticking to their perspective of failing to change due to their egocentrism the way hills do not change their position. A character like Helen whose name is mentioned almost at the end of the story by his husband Harry is one of the characters who stick to her personality that does not make Harry happy throughout their life to the point of claiming point blank that he did love her. The aspect is emphasized in Hemmingway (41) I love you now. Ill love you always love you. Dont you love me? Harry answered, No, I dont think so. I never have. But at the end, there is a personality change in Helen that makes Harry to mention her name and to seem like he was now starting to love her. Also, Harry changed his personality towards Helen hence symbolizing Harrys dynamic change. On the other hand, The Snows of Kilimanjaro does not offer a basis to study character personality and their dynamic evolution thus he fails to conform to the structure that Hills Like Mountains of Kilimanjaro outlines.
Both the two stories outline symbolism that success and failure, the theme of facing death with courage, a rift between husbands and wives, how to attain immortality and theme of guidance. To be specific, The Snows of Kilimanjaro outlines the theme of success and failure, facing death with courage and rift between husband and wife. On the other hand, Hills like White Elephants describes the theme of how to attain immortality as displayed by Jig when he looks at the beauty of River Ebro on the guidance of whether he was to consider abortion or not. The Snows of Kilimanjaro depicts the theme of facing death with courage when Harry admits that death is painless when he had struggled to live under fear of death but finally realized that he had to comply with the situation at hand hence acknowledging that death is painless (Na 138). Hills Like White Elephants depicts the couple as individuals who fight with a great rift that is guided by the mans egocentrism and cunning way of convincing the woman who waffles indecisively and pretending to have accepted her husband's deal of abortion but later shuts the man deal to take away the fetus life.
In the two Hemingway stories, there is the symbolic use of animals as a way of conveying a more profound message that runs throughout the two stories. The Snows of Kilimanjaro uses various animals that reveal a faced of the life of Harry until his death. Hills like White Elephants uses the symbolic white elephant to show that even though the society had huge aspects that can be well seen and comprehended by an average person, the man revealed that he had no sense of humanity to be able to see the relevance of the life of the young child. The story shows how the man considers the life of the unborn to be unworthy and something unwanted. According to the storyline, the man fails to see the worth of the life of the fetus, i.e., white elephant because to him the life of the unborn was worthless. According to Lu (58), Hills Like White elephant story concluded the typical look of the white elephants when Jig realizes that the baby might not be a burden hence she considers taking the baby as a blessing.
In the snows of Kilimanjaro, there are two symbolic animals: hyena and the Leopard. Citing Jinping (30), the Leopard symbolizes Harry who previously fears to die due to the circumstances that surround him but later accepts the fact that death is fearless hence the animals helped in building the theme of fearlessness of death. The leopard symbolizes Harrys quest to be a strong man with a meaningful life, but instead, he is portrayed to be like a hyena since he eyed the wealthy woman just because of money and not love. The hyena is also used as the messenger of death since it revolves around the campsite while waiting for Harry to die and consume his body the way he eyed Helens richness. Harrys character of not wanting to work for what they want in life is symbolically outlined by the traits of the hyena and the vultures which end up camping around Harrys dying body to benefit from what they have not worked for.
In summation, Hemingways Snows of Kilimanjaro and Hills Like White Elephants show various similarities with a few differences in term of the symbolic appeals. Throughout the stories, there is a perfect use of characterization, for instance, the one that characterized Harry to the Hyena and the Leopards character. On the other hand, the White elephants are symbolic to the helpless fetus that face the egocentrism of the man who tries to use cunning ways to convince the woman to perform abortion as a way of eliminating the white elephant which seemed to be of no relevance to him.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. The complete short stories of Ernest Hemingway. New Canadian Library, 2014: 40-43
Hietanen, Marko. "a stylistic comparison of two short stories by Ernest Hemingway:" A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and" Hills Like White Elephants." (2009).
Jinping, Ge. "Dissatisfaction and Awakening: Revisiting Hemingway's Cat in the Rain and Hills like White Elephants." Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies 6 (2010): 030.
Kang, S. H. I. "The Perfect Reflection of Hemingway's" Iceberg Principle" in" Hills Like White Elephants." Overseas English 5 (2012): 093.
Lu, Gao. "Women's Dilemma: An Analysis of" Cat in the Rain" and" Hills like White Elephants." Journal of Jixi University 6 (2010): 056.
Mohan, B. "HEMINGWAYS FEMALE CHARACTERS-A GLANCE." Asian Journal of Multidimensional Research 2.7 (2013).
Na, Li. "Equally full of affection, two kind of downcastsCompare with Hemingway and Mansfield's...
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