Comparison Between The Hollow Of The Three Hills And Elephant

Re-sit (Comparison between Elephant and the Hollow of the Three Hills)
Both the stories Elephant by Raymond Carver and The Hollow of the Three Hills by Nathaniel Hawthorne reveal the theme of love. This is done through many emotions such as the portrayal of one’s solitude and grief. The stories highlight the central characters feelings towards loss and failure. They show how one can be deceitful and still expect so much, and how being isolated can really tear a person apart till death or make them realise they need a new start.
In the Elephant every character relies on or is dependent on the narrator. He is in essence their certainty and assured future, without him their lives would become unmanageable. The narrator accepts this. Whereas in The Hollow of the Three Hills, the woman dishonoured her family, rather than helped them. The main character is a woman with an abominable past who tries to run away from her problems. She had such a secret where “no mortal would observe them”. Though the protagonist in Elephant, even though he thought about abandoning his family, did not as he accepted his role to help others. That’s the difference between both of the characters in how they love their families. In Elephant he wants to run but stays as love keeps him bonded to them, he can’t bear being alone. Though in The Hollow of the Three Hills, the protagonist runs away and then realises her regret for deserting a deep affection her family always had for her.
The protagonist in Elephant always feels responsible for his family, “What could I do?” and “I didn’t want him to lose it (his house)”. He cannot run away from his responsibilities, as he feels as if he’s escaping from love, even if it’s love from giving money. Unlike the women in The Hollow of the Three Hills who in hardship left her family to feel “weary and lonesome”. She left her family with pain and aversion towards her and is in regret for this. In Elephant he rather not regret leaving but live in a world where his family can “steal” of him and think he’s being loved.
In The Hollow of the Three Hills, the woman looked upon her husband who she left alone and felt remorse after, so had to visit the witch in order to see how he was. He was not well at all and she broke all the love and trust she built with him, “He spoke of a woman’s perfidy of a wife who had broken her holiest vow”. In Elephant the narrators family members show love but for greediness not because they are heart-broken like the woman’s husbands in The Hollow of the Three Hills. In Elephant the protagonists children would go far lengths to disrespect their father for a materialistic life- “I’ll deal drugs or else rob a bank”. Though he keeps accepting their manipulation for money, “I don’t know what I’d do without you dad” even though he understands he is being exploited but rather have that than have no family.
Both characters in both stories are dissatisfied with their life due to the lack of love in their life. In the Elephant the protagonist is “working hard all day” and “has troubles of his own”, which reveals a strong sense of alienation. In The Hollow of the Three Hills, the woman is alone because she chose to be and now is paying for the continual hold of past and present and will always have the burden of her sins. Unlike the man in Elephant, she is a coward, which is ironic as she put her own self in this situation by not loving her family enough.
In The Hollow of the Three Hills the witch says to the young lady, “Here is our pleasant meeting come to pass according as thou hast desired (...) short hour we may tarry”. The woman’s death is being foreshadowed. It is also suggesting that the two meet because of a greater power which determines fate of the woman. In Elephant, the man’s future life is being foreshadowed as personal redemption and free of security from his family, “streaked down the road in the big un-paid for car” which represents a new start of his own life. A time where he can be led dependent too help others, this is shown be him not paying for the car ride. So love in Elephant has created greed and personal gain but makes the narrator realises that this is not what family is for and he too has a right for a good life. Unlike the women in The Hollow of the Three Hills whose personal greed and choice of leaving her family alone has caused her to lose life, as it was not much of a life but a life of solitude.
In Elephant, the narrator cares a lot for his son, whereas in The Hollow of the Three Hills she left her daughter to die. The man longs for his son to be happy, so sends him money as he says back, “won’t let you down dad”. His child may be selfish but the narrator will fulfil his role of a father and that’s not to let his child down when in times of need. This reveals the real affection he has and the love he wants to maintain in his family. Though the women does the opposite for her daughter as she was left to die of an illness. Hawthorne foreshadows this by writing “into the tone of a death bell” and “like the lamplight on the wall of a sepulchre”. She possessed no care for her daughter as she never put her first. She is now experiencing the consequence of living in guilt, whereas in Elephant the narrator lives in a condition of rituals which results in stagnation. He is being used not loved, but the woman used to be loved and gave it up. Giving up and abandonment was never a choice for the narrator in Elephant, he just saw the error of his ways and cleared them.
So in conclusion both texts, Elephant and The Hollow of the Three Hills centre on characters that are in deprivation of love and both scared of solitude. Love is essential for both, as creates life for them, as the woman clearly lost hers which reveals the importance of it and the difficulty of surviving without it. In Elephant, the narrator realised the importance of independence and how love cannot be achieved by family depending on you for wrong reasons.