Woman Hollering Creek Compare And Contrast Essay

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Disillusion is defined as “the condition of being dissatisfied or defeated in expectation or hope” especially in the case of love (“Disillusion”). This is the case for the two protagonists in the written works “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. The two short stories share a similar theme of the protagonists’ suffering from disillusions, their resolutions are extremely different due to the epiphanies. In the short story “Woman Hollering Creek” the conflict of the story is between the main characters Cleofilas, the protagonist, and Juan, the antagonist who are married. The conflict stems from Cleofilas’ perception of how a wife should be treated versus Juan’s idea of how to treat …show more content…

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 …show more content…

Cleofilas’ disillusion is at an all time high during the crisis, when she needs to go to the doctor’s office for a pregnancy check up, yet she is too afraid to ask because they cannot afford it, she is scared of being physically accosted by her husband, and she does not know how to explain her bruises to the doctor. The climax then arises and Cleofilas, with the help of the doctor’s assistant and her friend, give her the opportunity to leave her husband. Cleofilas’ comes to the epiphany that her and her children do not deserve to be treated like this and her husband is not in love with her. The epiphany leads Cleofilas to the resolution to leave her husband and to no longer live with constant disillusion over her

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