Hemingway Vs. Carver

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at things doesn’t mean that you are really seeing them. “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed … a blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 1). This quote accurately depicts the narrator’s animosity towards having the blind man in his house. In the story, the Protagonist was two people, the wife and Robert, the blind man. The antagonist being the narrator, which slowly changed towards the end of the story. At the end of the story, the narrator and Robert are drawing a cathedral together, but Robert told the narrator to have his eyes closed when he drew. Seeming reluctant at first, the narrator did it. After drawing the cathedral together, Robert tells the narrator to open his eyes and he kept them shut. “But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do. … It’s really something” (Carver 14). This showed that through communication, the narrator realizes that being blind isn’t always a bad thing. He comes to appreciate Robert and his disability.

Both of these stories have a common theme; communication. Hemingway proves that communication doesn’t always work out, because the American was trying to convince Jig to get an abortion while Jig kept dancing around the subject in “Hills Like White Elephants”. Carver proves different in his story, communication was what showed the narrator to open his eyes and to be more accepting of things he wasn’t comfortable with in “Cathedral”. In terms of plot progression, “Cathedral” contained a more impactful relationship, due to the fact that the narrator wasn’t excited to have a blind man in his house, but towards the end of the story although his eyes were closed, he had an eye-opening experience because of the relationship he formed with Robert. “Hills Like White Elephants” seems to have the setting that greater impacts the story. The reasoning behind this is because it is set in a bar while both of the characters are drinking alcohol, meanwhile the American is convincing his pregnant girlfriend to have an abortion. Her partaking in alcohol consumption shows that although she keeps dancing around the subject, an abortion is probably what is best for both characters. Altogether, both stories prove communication is key while in any situation.

Works Cited

Carver, Raymond. “Cathedral.” The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. By Ann Charters. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2011. 191-201.

Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. R.V. Cassill. New York: Norton & Company, 1995. 443-447.