Themes of Distraction and Perspective in Two Kinds and Hills Like White Elephants Literature Essay Sample

When reading the texts of Two Kinds and Hills Like White Elephants, themes of distraction and perspective connected the stories to each other, and to real life along with them.

To begin with, Tan’s story relates to the musical practice that a musician needs to work on to continuously improve for most of their life and career. This relation stops when Jing Mei had gotten distracted from learning music, and rather focused on defying her mother and making a statement. However, themes of perspective, where Jing Mei learned to look beyond her pleading and make it to the perfect contentment, whether it is a life lesson or a Schumann piano book, apply to reality in the need to look at situations from multiple perspectives. Even from the perspective of a student, taking a step back when overloaded with classwork or an extremely difficult or lengthy piece of music, allows them to see the reason to work to succeed in classes or achieve a masterful interpretation and performance of a piece of music. Relating back to Two Kinds, when Jing Mei looked back at Schumann’s “Pleading Child” and realized it was only a movement that built towards another movement with the idea of a matured mindset which was aptly named, “Perfect Contented”, it took her own personal maturity to look back and see that her life paralleled the different movements of Schumann’s piece. Also, when the subject of family was brought up in discussion, it added another layer to the idea of perspective. The Asian cultural norm of having obedient children applies to the parents of a lot of students, who want their children to do exactly as they say and be exactly what they want them to be. If the perspective of Jing Mei’s mother was to be opened to see her daughter’s struggle and yearning for personal will and choice earlier than the heated argument, she could have seen that the ways of strict discipline are of the past and are hurting more than helping. 

More than just Amy Tan, Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants expounded upon the human side of perspective. When the characters in the story would drink to avoid conversation, it showed that when faced with a difficult conversation about a topic such as abortion, the human reaction to it is to talk about anything but what is difficult. When described in discussion, alcohol is known to dull one’s filter of what not to talk about, which this couple seems to be relying on to get through the conversation. However, the distraction from the conversation is followed by the American’s success in convincing her to get the operation, and it shows that while reliance on a lack of filter helps to get through a conversation, it also makes one more easily persuadable through suggestion. The suggestions may have not affected Jig if it were not for her and the American’s drinking, but her deflection to viewing the hills that looked like white elephants was easily dismissed to talk about the deep conversation under conditions that were not healthy for the outcome of the decision or the relationship. 

Whether it was the distraction from talking about the operation in Hills Like White Elephants, or distraction from parenting or musical work ethic in Two Kinds, themes of distraction connect the two to each other, and to reality outside of the books. The connection between the stories is demonstrated in the distraction from important topics or conversations, where Jing Mei’s mother was distracted from seeing her daughter’s genuine interests, and Jing Mei herself was distracted from seeing her conflict with her mother as only a portion of her life, and where Jig and the American both distracted themselves from talking about an abortion. Each distraction continually furthers the idea that the problems in each character’s situation are helped to resolve through a look through the perspective outside of their own.