Two Friends And Cranes Comparison

“We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves” once said Barbara Jordan, an important leader in the civil rights movement. The stories “Two Friends” and “Cranes” show how this quote applies in difficult scenarios. The story “Two Friends”, written by Guy de Maupassant, is focused around two friends from Paris who cross enemy lines during the French-Prussian War to go fishing, which results in both of their deaths. The story “Cranes”, written by Hwang Sunwon, is centered around a man named Songsam during the Korean War who struggles with deciding to let his childhood friend, Tokchae, go free after being captured. These two stories can be compared but also contrasted. The stories “Two Friends” and “Cranes” are both similar because of the stories settings, but also different because of the outcome of the stories and the conflict that the characters deal with.
The stories “Two Friends” and “Cranes” are similar because of the war torn settings that the characters deal with in the story.
During 1871 in France, “Paris was under siege, in the grasp of famine, at its last gasp” (Maupassant 1). France is at war with the Prussians and is struggling to survive. Similar to Korea during the time of the Korean war how the two countries are both very war torn. The introduction of “Cranes” states that “This story takes place during the Korean war, a conflict that pitted friend against friend and even brother against brother” (Sunwon i). The North and South are engaged in a major conflict that has destroyed large parts of the country. Both France and Korea have experienced much destruction of their land that has caused turmoil between people in those areas. Both of these stories take place in war-torn environments that have caused the civilians living in these areas many
problems. Unlike the setting of the two stories, these two stories are different because of the outcome of each story, where one is more happy where the other is more gruesome. The story of “Two Friends” comes to a tragic ending as “Twelve shots rang simultaneously. Monsieur Sauvage fell like a log onto his face. Morissot, who was taller, swayed, spun round, then collapsed on top of his friend” (Maupassant 8). The story “Two Friends” comes to a brutal ending as the two friends who simply wanted to go fishing during a time of war end up getting shot by Prussian soldiers. The outcome of “Two Friends” is unlike the ending of “Cranes” in the sense that “Two Friends” has a tragic outcome whereas the outcome of “Cranes” is a much more happy ending. Songsam decides to let Tokchae go by saying “Hey, how come you’re standing there like a dummy? Go flush like a Crane!” (Sunwon 3). Songsam decides that because of his history with Tokchae, he should let him go free and that's what he does. Compared to “Two Friends”, “Cranes” has a much happier ending where both main characters end the story still living. While these stories have a similar setting, the outcome of both of the stories is very different.
In addition to the outcomes of the two stories, the story “Two Friends” and the story “Cranes” are also different because of the difference in the types of conflict that the characters deal with, where one is external and the other is internal. “Still, by January of 1871, Paris was in danger of collapsing under the German siege” (Maupassant i) during the French-Prussian war. The main conflict that the two characters are dealing with in this story is an external conflict, which is the war that they are fighting. This is different from “Cranes” where the conflict is more internal than it is an external conflict. Songsam is thinking and “Fingering the revolver on his side, Songsam went on” (Sunwon 2). Songsam is deciding whether or not he should let Tokchae go because on one hand he would be betraying his country but on the other hand Tokchae is his friend who he has known longer than this war. This conflict is different from the conflict of “Two Friends” because while Songsam still is at war, his main conflict is internal, unlike the external conflict of “Two Friends”. While these stories might be similar is setting they both have a different type of conflict that they deal with.
The story “Two Friends” and the story “Cranes” are different because of the conflict that the characters struggle with and because of the outcome of the two stories, but they are also similar because of the setting that the stories take place in. As Barbara Jordan once said “We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves” and we can see how this affects the characters in the stories based off of their actions.