Destiny Bandy ENGL 1102 25 September 2014 Dr. Donna Maddock-Cowart Dichotomy The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. – Thomas Paine Conflicts and strong internal forces have the potential to cause chaos within your life and the lives of those surrounding you. One seemingly minor decision can make or break your life. To grow and survive, characters in "Hills Like White Elephants", "I Stand Here Ironing", and “Things That They Carried” had to make such arduous decisions. In "Hills Like White Elephants", the girl, Jig, and her boyfriend, the American, are sitting in a train station surrounded by hills, fields, and trees in a valley in Spain. As they drink beer, Jig comments that the hills look like white elephants, …show more content…
This phone call causes her to reflect on their life together. She had Emily at nineteen. Soon after, her father left claiming, “he could no longer endure sharing want with [them]” (Olsen 299). The small family was already in poverty, but his leaving lead Emily’s childhood troubles to become even more expansive. Throughout her infancy, she stayed with a neighbor, her father’s family until she was 2, and other people due to the narrator’s hectic work schedule. Emily would make any and every excuse to stay home with her mother. While that is normal for a child on occasion, Emily would try to do this every day; this shows that he did not like being taken care of by other people. She never got the opportunity to have a true mother – daughter bond. Because of this, Mother does not understand her daughter any better than the person who called about Emily’s behavior. While she provided for Emily’s physical needs, she abandoned her emotional ones. Mother made the best decision she could at the time; being a young, single parent required her to work in order for them to survive. But could she have put in more effort to make time with Emily? Is it solely her fault that Emily is somber and