This paper is a contrast between “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemmingway short stories. The objective of the writing is to demonstrate that the two short stories differ both in structure and the choice of either the first or the third persons in the narration. “The Cask of Amontillado” is about Montessor, a man is on a revenge mission on one of his “friends” called Fortunado. He has a well-laid plan of revenging by trapping his friend and then and bury him alive. There are two kinds of settings in this story while the characters used by the author are Montresor, Montresor’s family, Fortunado, and Luchesi. The scene takes place somewhere in Italy in an underground catacomb over a period of two days. Montresor to revenge objectives is to ensure that the punished inflicted on Fortunato is permanent, and he has to know it’s coming from Montresor so that he can satisfy his conscience that he has had his hand on the adversary.
On the other hand, Hemingway’s, “Hills Like White Elephants” describes a couple going through a crisis because the wife is sick and her husband wants her to get an operation. The crisis emanates from the fact that the husbands take the medical procedure lightly while the wife is persuaded that something monstrous might happen during the operation. The author also highlights that the wife loves her man so much that she is willing to do anything, including undergoing the procedure as it is written: “And if I do, you’ll be happy, and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” (Hemingway 231).
Whereas The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe employs a quadrate setting with four distinct characters, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemmingway mainly employs a discussion between a couple from which the reader can derive the setting, symbolism, themes and other artistic devices employed by the author. Edgar Allan Poe relates four personalities namely Montresor, Montresor’s family, Fortunado, and Luchesi. Their relationship demonstrates the idea being communicated by the author. By using the four protagonists the author mostly uses dialogue to establish how the relationship is developed around them. The author develops the theme of revenge by demonstrating how Montresor and Fortunado have strong urges to destroy each other without even death disrupting their mission. This is demonstrated when the revenge mission extends to the catacombs.
On the other hand, the dialogue style used by Ernest Hemmingway makes the reader study the mind of the protagonists judging from the tones, attitude and the choice of words in their speech. The story differs from “The Cask of Amontillado” because of several instances where the couple engages in solitary thoughts or discussion. As for “The Cask of Amontillado,” the author builds up the setting on both narration and direct conversation among the characters.
In conclusion, the two authors use different approaches to shed light on some of the social issues affecting families and society at large. Ernest Hemmingway chose to express his thoughts through epilogue of the couple while Edgar Allan uses the conversations around Montresor, Montresor’s family, Fortunado, and Luchesi to bring out the theme of revenge. This shows that although authors write about things affecting our societies they are not restrained from exploring numerous stylistic devices to make their work unique and more understandable.