Option #2 : Comparing and Contrasting Happiness in “The Birthmark” and “Hills like White Elephants”.
Since I’m not used to writing informal blog posts, I will keep this post in a semi-academic manner with a bit of freedom given to the writing style and organization. It would feel more like a “forum post” if you will as opposed to a typical paper, but not as informal or personal as “blog post”.
In both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”, happiness is shown as a very elusive goal that both the characters in “The Birthmark” and “Hills like White Elephants” were most likely unable to achieve at the end of each tale. To elaborate, I believe both sets of characters in essence achieved “Pyrrhic Victory” at the end of the stories as although, it seems as though the goals set by author for the characters in the stories. In “The Birthmark”, Alymer was finally able to be rid of the horrid blemish on his wife’s cheek at cost of her life while in Hemmingway, although the couple (Jig and unknown man) were able to come to a consensus on their “decision” but the story ends with an ambiguous ending that at least to me, implied that the relationship between the two of them will drastically change after this event. Whether it would change for the good or worse, is up to the reader to infer. I also noticed that in both situations, the characters could have just learned to “live” with their lot. For example, Alymer could have just tried harder to ignore Georgiana’s birthmark or the couple in “Hills like White Elephants” could have kept the baby (although, this would still also have been a change in their relationship just like their abortion). Other than that, I really can’t see any deeper comparisons about “happiness” in both stories.
