Personalized Conflict in Communications - Literature review Example

COMMUNICATION Communication involves the transmittal of information from person to person, and hopefully there is a benefit to the sender, the receiver, or both. But sometimes, there is negative communication, and miscommunication. There is a difference between positive and negative communication, and often this difference is that in positive communication, the leader knows how to listen as well as how to speak. Communication must be a two-way street in which both the sender and receiver of information benefit. In the selected short stories, “No One’s a Mystery” by Talentt, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Hemingway, and “Fat” by Carver, we can see relationships can only really survive in this kind of environment where there is respect and communication. In each of these stories, there are fights, often between men and women who are alone; there is no one to tell them to stop. A third party mediator is not going to succeed unless he or she can get people actually interested in their message, so that people don’t have the feeling that they are endlessly repeating themselves, or being asked to come up with the same results repeatedly. In all three of these stories, “Hills Like White Elephants” “No Ones a Mystery” “Fat,” characters have a habit of miscommunicating with each other, especially in terms of male-female relationships; the Hemingway story is also unique, because it also weaves this communication with the author’s notions of masculinity, as represented by the typical Hemingway “code hero.” In Talentt’s story, we see a brief glimpse of a relationship between a man and a woman: the man is married and older, and the woman is younger. Half of the conversation goes on while the young woman is hiding on the floor of the man’s pickup truck, because they see his wife’s Cadillac. So, the communication starts from a position of physical inequality, and also shows one in which the couple miscommunicates because of negative communication patterns. In other words, in positive communication, both the sender and the receiver benefit. But in the communication in Talentt’s story, the smug older man seems to benefit, while the girl does not seem to, as much. However, some might argue that her answers to the man about their baby become increasingly representative of positive communication towards the end of the story. Overall, though, Talentt’s is a short story in which the characters often do not connect: in the following dialogue, it does not even seem like they are having the same conversation. “"Do you think shes getting famous because of who her daddy is or for herself?" Jack said. "There are about a hundred pop tops on the floor, did you know that? Some little kid could cut a bare foot on one of these, Jack” (Talentt, 2006). The man also constantly is belittling the girl, making fun of her age, and telling her that she sounds like a kid when she talks. They have a conversation, but they have trouble really communicating, mostly because of the situation (setting), and their different ages. Setting and age both contribute to their miscommunications. “No little kids get into this truck except for you." "How come you let it get so dirty?" " `How come, he mocked. "You even sound like a kid” (Tallent, 2000). This mockery does not help the situation, because it does not add to the positive communication element. In fact, the failure of their communication is heightened by the crossed wires. In Carver’s story, the focus of the narrative is on the woman’s experiences as a waitress, watching and talking to the portly man she seems to be obsessed with. This story is humorous, and also shows the power of goodness and conscience to influence us, and also shows that there are things we cannot control, and things we can. Explaining his eating, the fat man says, “But there is no choice” (Carver, 2000). At this point, he gives her the realization that she has a choice--that she doesn’t have to stay with her boyfriend. But it is not true or positive communication, because it is just a coincidence. The fat man is talking about eating, not the woman’s boyfriend. The woman focuses and obsesses about the fat man, even fantasizing about him when having sex with her boyfriend. She pictures him being “so fat that Rudy is a tiny thing and hardly there at all” (Carver, 2000). There is some kind of strange communication going on in this story between the fat man and the woman, but it is not positive. It disrupts rather than benefits. Whereas in the previous story, there is a sort of reconciliation when the girl talks to her lover about their babies, there is not this same kind of safe, happy reconciliation in Carver’s story, which is both darker and stranger. There is also a more vicarious element to this story that cannot be avoided. In Hemingway’s story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” there is also a serious issue of communication and miscommunication amongst the couple in the story, and in many ways, this story is reminiscent of “No One’s a Mystery.” Both stories focus on relationships between men and women, in compromising situations: where as in Talentt’s story, it was an illicit affair almost caught by a wife, in Hemingway’s, it is a couple who are going to have an illegal abortion. These are both naturally very uncomfortable moments, so the theme of miscommunication and negative communication is very strong in this story, as in Talentt’s. Also as in Talentt’s story, the dialogue between the characters sometimes seems like they are having two different conversations. “I might have,’ the man said. ‘Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything.’ The girl looked at the bead curtain. ‘They’ve painted something on it,’ she said. ‘What does it say?” (Hemingway, 2000). The sender and the receiver of the information in this passage are not benefiting, because there are crossed wires, and the communication is not going through. Therefore, the scene shows negative rather than positive communication. The awkward way the man launches into describing the abortion operation to the girl is a particularly uncomfortable and negative moment in the story. “The beer’s nice and cool,’ the man said. ‘It’s lovely,’ the girl said. ‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all” (Hemingway, 2000). Note that in this quotation, the communication between the characters again does not seem to match up, which ,as mentioned, is also reminiscent of Talentt’s technique (or rather, vice versa). Hemingway’s story also affects communication ideals that meet code hero ideals. The treatment of the hero or heroine goes back to Athens or London; it is interesting when an American author comes forth with a relatively new conception of heroism. Earnest Hemingway is one such author. His heroes are not possessed of mythological powers or even, in many cases, courage, but instead become heroes through their disillusionment with the societal norms of their time and their conviction that in the face of this distant society, heroism is the result of personal withdrawal and a feeling of stability within the resultant isolation and alienation (which often results in miscommunication and awkward communication with others). Many scholars call Hemingway’s heroes “code heroes” because they almost unanimously display this sense of frustration with and disillusionment by the superficial levels of society, and in turn provide the world with their own front of taciturn and ironic rebellion against its perceived superficiality. One such code hero is the character in Hemingway’s story featured here, but interestingly enough, the code hero seems to be the heroine, Jig: “I’ve never seen one,’ the man drank his beer. ‘No, you wouldn’t have.’ ‘Anis del Toro. It’s a drink.’” The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on. ‘I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.’ The girl did not say anything” (Hemingway, 2000). Taciturn silence, after all, is a major feature of the code heroine’s reactions. Of the three authors, Hemingway is the most credited with creating holistic character typologies. It is unfortunate that the emotional environment also has personalized conflict in communications that are not as regimented by authority roles in these short stories. There is also the possibility of using directive tactics and mediation in terms of learning how to solve problems and initiate recommendations to resolve a conflict, but none of these characters seem to realize this fact. Most conflict studies focus on the stages of the expression of conflict and the aftermath of conflict, so it is also important to think of this in terms of questioning why substantive conflict types in the stories are more salient in terms of delivering an actual solution to the problem as well as how men and women in the social environment can overcome personal obstacles to reach a better understanding of conflict resolution. If such a goal is accomplished, the awkward situations and relationships in Carver’s, Hemingway’s, and Talentt’s stories can perhaps be avoided in the future. In these future situations, people will be able to see eye to eye, and focus on the kind of communication in which both sides can benefit, rather than roles being unequal because of situation, circumstance, gender roles, real vs. imagined communication, etc. REFERENCE Carver, R (2000). Fat Hemingway, E (2000). Hills Like White Elephants. Talentt, C (2006). No one’s a Mystery. Read More