Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
A brief history and theme of American literature
Women's roles in 20th century america
Gender and its roles in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: A brief history and theme of American literature
Love Yours
Throughout the late American Literature era, we’ve come across the organizations of realism that compliments the ease into modernism and with the leftover of post modernism giving us a tree with branches of discovering a search of human perspective and outbreak from that perspective discovery. Such discovery of human nature has been evaluated through both male and female but within this era; male dominance has been a leading role with the scraps of feminism. We come to consensus that as bold male dominance is, Ernest Hemingway comes to approach with the feminism flavor and Freudian usage as a male outbreak through his short story; Hills Like White Elephants, that reflects the depths of pure feminism through Charlotte Gilman’s The
…show more content…
The story takes its readers as an “eavesdropper” towards this couple that sits and drink with the discussion of life and being born. But it’s the little things in Hemingway’s story that captures the moments and meanings of life and decision. The beer, the hills, the white elephant etc. All are messages and meaning to what this story is speaking, with the perception of feminism. I specifically connect this to feminism because the story in general revolves a woman that’s named “Jig” that is in a moment in her life where she’s pregnant from the man she loves but he fails to proceed with the baby being born. According to the Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory by Penguin, part of feminist criticism states, “it challenges traditional and accepted male ideas about the nature of women and about how women feel, act and think, or are supposed to feel, act and think, and how in general they respond to life and living.” (pg. 315). Hemingway creates this strong vibe of challenge towards Jig from her male companion that puts her in a place of a motherhood lifestyle that wants to be shed from her companion. His
The main characters’ conflict over not wanting the same things in life is the root of the women’s disillusionment. The theme is furthered by the complication of the antagonist manipulation of the Jig’s feelings for him. Similar to Cisneros’s written work, Hemingway uses the narrative point of view to illuminate the growing disillusionment the women feels about not being able to have everything if she terminates the pregnancy. Hemingway leads the audience to this conclusion when the protagonist states “no, we can’t it isn’t ours anymore… Once they take it away, you never get it back” when referring to her disappointment that the antagonist will not change his mind and they can no longer have everything they ever wanted
We notice, right from the beginning of his life, that Ernest Hemingway was confronted to two opposite ways of thinking, the Manly way, and the Woman way. This will be an important point in his writing and in his personal life, he will show a great interest in this opposition of thinking. In this short story, Hemingway uses simple words, which turn out to become a complex analysis of the male and female minds. With this style of writing, he will show us how different the two sexes’ minds work, by confronting them to each other in a way that we can easily capture their different ways of working. The scene in which the characters are set in is simple, and by the use of the simplicity of the words and of the setting, he is able to put us in-front of this dilemma, he will put us in front of a situation, and we will see it in both sexes point of view, which will lead us to the fundamental question, why are our minds so different?
Hemingway also uses immorality as the central idea. The American is trying to convince the girl to abort: ‘“I have known lots of people that have done it…. ‘But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants…‘I’ll love it” I just cannot think about it” (596,597). Here one sees how the man manipulates the girl.
As Hemingway wrote the story, he put it in a conversation like way, even though the couple barley talks, which shows tension between them. When the American and Jig actually do talk to each other, it seems as if they are trying to avoid each other, and the topic of the abortion. The American is really frustrated and will try and say almost anything to convince his girlfriend to have the operation. With in the story, he tells Jig that he loves her and that everything between them will go back to the way it use to be if she goes through with the abortion. Eventually, she cries “please, please, please, please, please, please” stop talking and says that she will have the abortion just to shut him up. When Jig then fails to speak Spanish with the bartender shows that she depends on the American but how she also has trouble expressing herself to other people.
In the “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, the pregnant girl, Jig, that drinks alcohol tells her boyfriend, American, that she is going to aborts the fetus. In a sense she just tells him this to get him to shut up because he is nagging at her to get an abortion. Jig and the American, her boyfriend talks about her having an operation and he emphasizes how much he cares for her and how much he loves her. The man tells Jig that the best thing she could do is have the operation. Jig wants to drink different types of alcoholic beverages and have a baby too. She has not come to reality that she is hurting the fetus. The man knows she is hurting the fetus by drinking alcohol that is why he wants her to have the operation to have
Ernest Hemmingway is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He wrote “Hills Like White Elephants” in 1927. Like many of his stories “Hemingway counted on the details of the story to communicate its meaning”. (Lanier 286) “Hills Like White Elephants” and Jig, who is the leading lady, are clear examples of the way Hemmingway “celebrated the ideal of “grace under pressure””. (Nicholas Delbanco 329) This same ideal is in Joyce Carol Oates writing. Her writing is unique in the way it focuses on violence stemming from human behavior. She herself has said, “I sometimes write about people who are ordinary people in extraordinary moments, because I think that people are much stronger and more interesting than they appear to be”. (Nicholas Delbanco 204) This is evident in the character Connie, the lead in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. Written
Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.
Writing style is a crucial element in the design of literature. An author's writing style sets the point of view and tone of the narrator. This affects how the reader interprets the story and changes their experience. Differing writing styles allow for similar or even identical stories to be told in a multitude of ways. For example, Good People, by David Foster Wallace, has almost the same plot as Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway, however, the narration styles of each story are almost opposite in nature. The differences between these two Short Fiction works make each work distinctive, and offer a new experience for the reader.
Eby, Carl P. "Hemingway's Fetishism: Psychoanalysis and the Mirror of Manhood. Albany: State University of New York Press. As Rpt. in Bauer, Margaret D. "Forget the Legend and Read the Work: Teaching Two Stories by Ernest Hemingway. College Literature, 30 (3) (Summer 2003): 124-37. EBSCOhost.
Throughout the story, Hemingway has the couple order and consume alcohol whenever their conversation gets to a point of causing one or both of them discomfort. The couple drinks alcohol at the story’s beginning. Settling in at the table, the prospect of facing each other for forty minutes and having to make conversation spooks them into ordering drinks before they do anything else new. They spend the first third of the story dancing around discussing the pregnancy without ever directly mentioning it. They are trying to avoid a decision they need to make about the pregnancy. The alcohol is also being used as a way to change the subject. When they start thinking about bringing up the subject while sitting together, they order another drink and talk about the “white elephants”
Close interpretation of the story "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway leads the reader to an issue that has plagued society for decades. Understanding of the human condition is unveiled in the story line, the main setting, and through the character representation. The main characters in the story are an American man and a female named Jig. The conflict about abortions is an issue that still faces society today. Architectural and atmospheric symbolisms are used to set the mood and outline the human condition. The love bond between the man and Jig is strong; however, the more powerful bond between Jig and her unborn child is sacred.
The story “Hills Like White Elephants” is about a couple who discuss an abortion. The American in the story addresses it as a “simple operation,” (487) while Jig seems to feel it is the wrong choice. I feel the man is encouraging her to have the abortion done in his own selfish way.
Through the characters' dialogue, Hemingway explores the emptiness generated by pleasure-seeking actions. Throughout the beginning of the story, Hemingway describes the trivial topics that the two characters discuss. The debate about the life-changing issue of the woman's ...
Strychacz, Thomas. "Dramatizations of Manhood in In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises." Hemingway's Theaters of Masculinity. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. 53-86. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 162. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Dec. 2013.