A Perfect Day for Kangaroos + Hills like White Elephants - Sam Kraus

 A Perfect Day for Kangaroos by Haruki Murakami is a classic Murakami-esque story, in which it seems that the goal is to provide more questions than answers. As we saw from the Kurt Vonnegut video in class yesterday, Kurt playfully mocked the typical format of a fictional story in which there is conflict, and then a predictable, warm solution or ending. Murakami seems to agree with his sentiment as none of his stories follow this format - they do not provide answers, but questions. Other Murakami-esque elements are present as well in the story such as Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder being played at the hot dog stand (reference to western culture), along with the narrator's girlfriend saying, “If I don’t see the baby kangaroo now I do not think I will have another chance to.” Murakami characters often say vague things that foreshadow future events. Boku’s girlfriend in A Wild Sheep Chase similarly acts like this such as when she persistently tells Boku that they must stay at the Dolphin Hotel. Another thing that caught my attention in the story is how they did not get to see the kangaroo as a baby as it had now grown up a bit and was bigger. An element/theme of time is at play here, in which things do not last forever - there is a window for when things can be done. Lastly, I was intrigued by how there were two other kangaroos in the enclosure with the mom and baby - the dad, and an unknown female. The other female is sort of described as out of place or not having much of a role, whereas the father was described as, “looking like a composer whose talent has run dry…” I found this sentence to be a little humorous, as now that the father has had his kid, there is little left to do - at least in an evolutionary perspective. 

Although I have already written a decent amount, I wanted to comment on the Ernest Hemingway story as well since I am a fan of his - I got to visit his house/museum a while back in Key West, Florida. The majority of the story consists of the American man and the girl discussing an abortion, in which they sit at a station in Spain, and the nearby hills look like white elephants. The man claims to be content with her not doing the abortion, but simultaneously, he does seem to pressure her quite a bit. During the conversation, a big element of the story that we witness would be the bamboo beads that separate them from another room. The story reads, “the warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table,” and then the man immediately brings up the abortion. The conversation really upsets her, and she even begs the American to stop talking. However, throughout the conversation, the girl looks at the beads and plays with them. Perhaps the beads bring her some relief; since they are in Spain, perhaps she is a Catholic, and the beads could represent a rosary. As for the constant mentions of white elephants, perhaps this conversation could be seen as the elephant in the room. They are traveling and having a good time, but the unwanted pregnancy clearly weighs on both of them.