In the short stories “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway and “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, both authors demonstrate a repetitive struggle of communication between the characters and how ignorance towards others can play a crucial role in the way people communicate with the opposite gender. In Hemingway’s story, the American man has a complete disregard for Jig’s feelings about having the abortion and throughout the story, he keeps on bringing up the topic as if it’s easy for her to talk about. In Carver’s story, the narrator is ignorant of how his wife feels about Robert, which causes the narrator to talk negatively about him. To begin with, both of these stories contain seriously flawed language which lacks the strength to make a point. A quote from the article “Gender-Linked Miscommunications between Genders in ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” by Pamela Smiley says: “The dialogue contains the essence of the story’s power; for to read Jig’s and the American’s conversation is to recognize the powerless frustration of parallel interchanges-in different words, in different place, and on different topics, but all somehow the same” (Smiley, 1). The American seemingly cannot empathize with Jig about the operation because he doesn’t see it as a big deal and would rather continue traveling with her rather than to take care of a kid all the time. His language is dull and repetitive in the fact that he just wants to confirm whether Jig will have the abortion or not. The man claims to be okay with whatever her decision is but we all know what he truly desires, as he displays when he says: “I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you really don’t want to.” By saying that, he clearly states his position on the subject and hopes Jig will realize it’s for the best as well. Jig, on the other hand is poor at communicating her feelings to the American man because she wants to make him happy and feels that if she doesn’t do what the man wants, he won’t be happy with her and will ultimately leave her. Jig also displays a pattern of indecisiveness and going back and forth between the options of keeping the baby or aborting it. Jig begins with saying: “We could have everything.” The man follows up with: “We can have everything.” Jig is quick to change her mind, saying: “No, we can’t” (Hemingway, 206). This happens multiple times when she i