Hemingway's Little Things Vs. Hills Like White Elephants
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Comparative Analysis between Carver and Hemingway (Little Things V. Hills like White Elephants)
Jacob Clayton Ernest Hemingway and Raymond carver have both been described as minimalist. Minimalism is defined, in the most minimal why possible as a style or technique that is characterized by extreme sparseness and simplicity. Hemingway is known as a master of minimalism, and one of its earliest sponsors and he accepts the title of a minimalist writer without question. Carver on the other hand, doesn’t like this label even though he admits that he grew up reading Hemingway and his writing is very lean style. Carver doesn’t like the label of minimalism because he believes that people perceive this as minimalistic writers have narrow views…show more content… Today though will not be the analysis of wither or not these writers are minimalist (because they are) but rather comparing and contrasting the two styles to see the similarities and differences of the two authors. Carver style is very similar to Hemingway, this is partly due to the fact that Hemingway’s writing influenced carver since a very young age. Hemingway influenced Carver greatly maybe that’s why they were both Alcoholics. But I digress back to main point comparing the style of writing between Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants and Carver’s “Little Things”. Both of these stories have open endings, carver leaves the reader wonder what truly happened to the baby we can assume that the child was killed but the reader doesn’t get confirmation. Hemingway leaves the reader wondering if the couple will part their separate ways or continue their relationship, or will the girl get the “operation” whatever it may be. Both writers give as a conflict in there story that we don’t really understand. For example in the “Little Things”, “you can’t even look me in the face can you.” Carver opens the story with conflict between a husband and wife, but the reader has no exposition to understand what happened to cause this fight between the…show more content… What is this operation the reader is never given a straight answer or any answer for that matter, it could be anywhere from an abortion to a lobotomy. Something has occurred with this man and woman (Couple issues just like carver) that has caused the man to think that some type of operation can help the situation. This is shown within the dialogue the man and the women have about the operation when the man says “We’ll be fine after wards. Just like we were before.” To the man the only thing that is troubling the relationship can be solved by a simple operation. The reader doesn’t know what the operation is or the problem that can supposedly be solved by the operation. So again Hemingway lets the reader make his/her own assumptions about what the hidden meaning behind the dialogue is. The dialogue is clean and gets to the point there is no fancy wording, no Charles dickening around here just straight to the point. This gives the dialogue a similar feeling to “Little Things” that the narrator is cold and detached from the events happening. The more you read this and “Little Things” your emotions are the feelings that come to the surface of the characters, the actually writers gave very little in the way of characterization. The contrast between these two pieces is that Hemingway puts a little more punctuation in his story then carver, giving it more of pauses and