Sometimes in a relationship, people hold their interests before their partner’s knowing fully how it might be affecting them. In Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” a man known only as the American achieves this through his condescending and demeaning statements. Shukumar in “Temporary Matter” crushed by learning of Shoba’s plans to move out, decides to confess the gender of their child, knowingly that Shoba wanted to be spared of that knowledge. Both males in each piece feel hurt that their not having it their way, so decide to inflict damage upon their female
