a Comparison (Hills Like White Elephants & The Clod and the Pebble)

In this article, I am going to compare "The Clod and the Pebble" by William Blake with "Hills Like White Elephants" by Hemingway on the following  four points.

1,themes
2,symbolism
3,God
4.types

First of all, obviously, the themes are both about love, and gives us great pictures of human nature. In "Clod &the Pebble", we can learn that love is not selfish, it is all about giving and not caring about what we receive; we can also learn 'love' is selfish  and bind others just to please themselves, which is totally opposite to the other opinion. So, the theme is that love gives you pleasure and also it hurts. In "Hills Like White Elephants", Hemingway didn't as clearly as what William Blake showed us what love is. However, Hemingway described the story between the girl and the American man, from which we can find ourselves in it. In the story, the girl really loves the man, however, even if she tried very hard to keep their relationship going on, she finally gave up. So we can see even if it is a true love, we still have many difficult decisions to make and sometimes we have to give up keeping the relationship for some reasons.

Secondly, there is symbolism in both writings. In "the Clod &the pebble", "clod" symbolizes good person, and "pebble" symbolizes bad person. Because clod is made of dirt and malleable, and pebble is an irritating stone which causes pain if you walk on it. Also, in "Hills like White Elephants", there are symbols. For example, hills represent the fertility of a woman. In the last part of the story "He picked the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks but could not see the train", from which we can feel that the man probably also likes the girl, but he has no other choice but persuade her doing the abortion. The two heavy bag probably represents the abortion, which means the man is trying to help the girl. "he could not see the train" means he felt that even if the girl smiled at him, their relationship would come to an end very shortly.

Thirdly, from "The clod &the pebble", we can see that William Blake believes in God, because clod is made of dirt which is a part of the earth(nature and God), however, the pebble does not belong to the nature and God; the clod is the "good person", and the pebble is "the bad ones" or devil.  In contrast, there seems no God in "Hills Like White Elephants".

Lastly, because "Clod &the pebble" is a poem, there is rhyme and alliteration in it. However, "Hills Like White Elephants" is a short story, so there is not any characteristics of poems in it.