Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants and deMaupassant's The Necklace

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In Hemingway's, "Hills Like White Elephants" and deMaupassant's "The Necklace", the couple faces a crisis. In each story the couple handles the situation in different ways, which caused one couple to suffer for a very long time and the other, due to the choice that they have made, gave them a better life. In "The Necklace", the couple was not wealthy; the husband was a store clerk. When it came to going to a ball, she did not want to attend not just because she did not have anything to wear but she did not have any jewelry. The couple just could not afford it. Since her husband would do anything to make her happy, he had given her the money that he was saving up so she could buy herself a dress. After buying a dress and borrowing a necklace from her rich friend, they were off to the ball. After having a wonderful time and returning back home, she realized the necklace that she had borrowed was not on her neck anymore. After going to the jeweler to get it replaced, they knew that they would be in debt for a long time. "Loisel possessed 18 thousand fiancés which his father left him and he had to borrow the rest" (Maupassant, 2004, p. 349). For the necklace cost 44 thousand fiancés. Ten years they spent repaying back the money that they borrowed. In "Hills Like White Elephants" the couple faces a crisis where the wife is sick. Her husband wants her to get an operation. To the husband it seems as if it is a simple procedure, yet to the wife, she is afraid that something might happen during the operation. "And if I so it you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?" (Hemingway, 2004, p. 231). The wife would do anything to please her husband. She loves him dearly and may be that afraid that since she is sick that he may leave her.

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