Comparison of Hills like White Elephants and FAT

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Comparison of Hills like White Elephants and FAT

Both Hill like White Elephants and FAT are short stories about current

issues that have to be resolved. The issue in FAT regards obesity in

America and is shown as a conversation between the narrator and

Rudy’. Hills like White Elephants, however, the issue is abortion and

the author uses direct speech creating the effect that we are near the

couple, eavesdropping on the conversation. In FAT, the author uses

indirect speech because the person is retelling the past events to a

friend. He does this to make it seem as if he is describing it to us

(us being the friend). This creates trust for the narrator.

To create the illusion of conversation and focus the reader on the

issue at hand, in both stories authors do not develop the character

fully. This is to ensure we focus on the action and the characters’

situation. This also emphasises in fact that this is a situation that

can effect anyone. In Hills like White Elephants this is performed by

only using the characters’ names once to increase their anonymity.

However, this does give a clue the background/culture of the pair,

e.g. Jig is definitely not a European name and appears to be more of a

nickname, perhaps again emphasising the youth of the girl. This is

because nicknames are more commonly used amongst children then adults.

The uses of just ‘man’ also generalises the piece and makes him a

representative of males in western society and their attitudes. Either

this, or Hemmingway just trying to give a snapshot of a moment in

strangers’ lives which adds to the air of detachment. This detachment

from the characters helps us to engage with the issue as readers and

makes us feel empathy towards the girl and ...

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...ionship of any

kind. At the end of the day, humans are social animals who like to

feel part of a community and it is therefore striking when these

characters are so obviously outcasts.

However, the ending in FAT is very different to the ending in Hills

like White Elephants. In Hills like White Elephants, the train comes

and the couple leave, unlike in FAT where the narrator and Rudy get in

bed and then as soon as Rudy ‘gets on [her]’ she feels ‘terrifically

fat’. We are not told why this is but we know ‘[her] life is going to

change’. This is also shown by the mention of ‘it is August’, the

change between summer and winter. Therefore, we can only assume that

her outlook has changed as well as her prejudice. This makes the

reader empathetic towards the fat man and we see that, like abortion,

obesity is an issue that needs to be understood to be resolved.

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