¶ … Miss Brill" is a story about loneliness and estrangement. Miss Brill is an old woman who is out of touch with her times, but who, at the same time, wants to integrate, communicate and interact with the people around her. She wants to go out, meet with them, talk with them, but nobody seems willing to do that and, towards the end of the story, they become plain rude about her appearance. The first theme that should be discussed in view of the thesis is the fact that Miss Brill longs for interaction with individual, something that supports the idea that she is, otherwise, very lonely. She appreciates the fact that there are people out that afternoon, more than usual, giving her better chances of finding someone to talk to: "there were a number of people out this afternoon, far more than last Sunday" (Mansfield, 1).

Second, her willingness to interact and communicate is supported by the number of people she tries to talk to or those whose conversations she would like to listen to. From the young couple at the end to the man with gray hair who lights a cigarette, she wants to be a part of all of their worlds and everybody avoids her.

Finally, her estrangement is also...

The coat could be Miss Brill herself: an old, out of place object that cannot find its place in the real world and in the new environment around.
"Hills Like White Elephants" is a story about manipulation and persuastion. The American tries to convince his girlfriend that she should have an operation, although it remains unclear what kind of operation this is, whether it is a simple procedure or something else (one could understand the operation as being an abortion, because of the symbolism in the text). He uses a diverse array of persuasion techniques to convince her to have the operation.

One of these techniques is to go back on his position and tell her that…