Comparing Where Are you going, Where Have You Been and Hills Like White Elephants

Authors of great stories often use good technical writing skills. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast two short stories: Where Are you going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates and Hills Like White Elephants by Earnest Hemingway. The comparison and contrast will be done based on their use of plot, point of view and character development.

The short story where are you going, where have you been is about a teenage girl who is, vain, self-doubting and affixed in the present. She does not know anything about the past or doubts it and has no plan of the future. She argues with her mother and she thinks she is jealous of her. The start of the plot is not very dramatic rather it is more like an introduction. We get a good description of the story’s Protagonist, Connie at the beginning of the story and through out. She is familiar, the typical American teenager, who dream, fantasize and have difficulty differentiating the real world from fairytale. Kozikowsky compares the story to the popular recent Disney tale “Cinderella” (1999). In “Where are you going, where have you been?” the setting of the story is not revealed at the beginning. The reader slowly learns about Connie’s family and her living condition throughout the story.

In “Hills Like Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, there is no dramatic situation at the beginning of the story either, rather He starts by giving us a detailed description of the setting. The reader gets a clear mental image of where the story will take place. The Author begins the story by introducing the scene since it will have a great significance in understanding the many symbolisms he will be using later. Some experts say that “Although there is a situation, there is no plot” ( Henningf...

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Works cited

Henningfeld, Diane Andrews. "Hills Like White Elephants." Short Stories for

Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Gale

Kozikowski, Stan. "The Wishes and Dreams Our Hearts Make in Oates's 'Where

Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'." Journal of the Short Story in English. 33 (Autumn 1999): 89-103. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 70. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 89-103. Literature Resource Center. Gale.

Renner, Stanley. "Moving to the girl's side of 'Hills Like White Elephants.'." The

Hemingway Review. 15.1 (Fall 1995): p27. Literature Resource Center. Gale.

Weeks, Lewis E., Jr. "Hemingway Hills: Symbolism in 'Hills like White

Elephants'." Studies in Short Fiction. 17.1 (Winter 1980): 75-77. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 75-77. Literature Resource Center. Gale.