Compare/Contrast Essay
The short pieces Monday and Tuesday by Virginia Woolf and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway are both proper examples of Modernist writing. Generally, the two stories contain very ambiguous, or seemingly non-existent, themes, which complement their pieces. The authors both achieve this by not really having an obvious protagonist, having this character be without motive or a subjective opinion of their situation, and finishing the piece with unresolved ending and meaning.
Virginia Woolf’s Monday and Tuesday does not have a clear protagonist, evident by the fact that the page is simply the unsystematic thoughts in a head. Nothing about the lines could make the reader get annoyed at or root for the “character” thinking them, with the exception possibly of being irritated at how difficult they are to understand.
In A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway, there are only four characters who speak, two of those men …show more content…
However, the reader still does not get a sense of a protagonist in the story. It seems there are just two men, one younger and irked, the other older and more patient.
The characters, aside from not being “heroes”, also do not seem to carry any important motive, or intense opinion about their situation. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place depicts two men chatting in a bar, and the only motive and opinions they have, come off as unimportant, short-lived, or mild. They briefly speak about an old man who attempted suicide, which neither care nor have a view on, and then how “[the] guard will get him”, which also does not seem to affect them. The younger waiter complains about how feeding the man more drinks will get him too drunk, a statement which the older waiter assures him is trivial, that the man is just out having a good time and is not causing trouble. As the young man continues to whine
Virginia Woolf’s Monday and Tuesday does not have a clear protagonist, evident by the fact that the page is simply the unsystematic thoughts in a head. Nothing about the lines could make the reader get annoyed at or root for the “character” thinking them, with the exception possibly of being irritated at how difficult they are to understand.
In A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway, there are only four characters who speak, two of those men …show more content…
However, the reader still does not get a sense of a protagonist in the story. It seems there are just two men, one younger and irked, the other older and more patient.
The characters, aside from not being “heroes”, also do not seem to carry any important motive, or intense opinion about their situation. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place depicts two men chatting in a bar, and the only motive and opinions they have, come off as unimportant, short-lived, or mild. They briefly speak about an old man who attempted suicide, which neither care nor have a view on, and then how “[the] guard will get him”, which also does not seem to affect them. The younger waiter complains about how feeding the man more drinks will get him too drunk, a statement which the older waiter assures him is trivial, that the man is just out having a good time and is not causing trouble. As the young man continues to whine