In Hemingway's, "Hills Like White Elephants" and deMaupassant's "The Necklace", the couple faces a crisis. In each story the couple handles the situation in different ways, which caused one couple to suffer for a very long time and the other, due to the choice that they have made, gave them a better life.

In "The Necklace", the couple was not wealthy; the husband was a store clerk. When it came to going to a ball, she did not want to attend not just because she did not have anything to wear but she did not have any jewelry. The couple just could not afford it. Since her husband would do anything to make her happy, he had given her the money that he was saving up so she could buy herself a dress. After buying a dress and borrowing a necklace from her rich friend, they were off...