Stuggles of Women from Two Different Points of View

1613 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Symbolism Portrayed in Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants

“Hills like White Elephants” was written by Ernest Hemingway was first published in August of 1927. The other work that I have chosen to compare with the short story is “Black Woman” written by Georgia Douglas Johnson which was first published in 1922 during the Harlem Renaissance. The short story “Hills like Whit Elephants” is about a woman who is pregnant out of wedlock. The man in the story is trying to make her have surgery to remove the child, like an abortion. But the woman is debating about keeping the baby and making their relationship work with the child in their lives. She thinks that maybe having the child will make their relationship stronger. The poem “Black Woman” is depicting a colored woman who is talking to her unborn child that is inside her and begging the child to not be born into this world yet. She is that the world is a terrible place for her to raise the child. The mother’s fears are that the child will be treated very horrible and having to live the life of a colored. She even goes into the poem stating that is going to take the life of her baby and herself, so that she doesn’t have to raise the child in the conditions. Both of these works are similar and yet so different in terms of literature. They are both dealing with the struggles of the woman when they are expecting a child when there is an unstable future. However, I believe that Johnson’s work accurately portrays the struggles of the woman over Hemingway. The first topic that can be brought up is the point of view in Johnson’s poem shows the struggle, pain, and fear more than the woman depicted in the short story by Hemingway. This is also a valid point because the woman in the poem is colored; only adding to the pain that she is feeling towards... ... middle of paper ... ... An example is, ‘‘and we could have all this, she said. And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible. What did you say? I said we could have everything. We can have everything. No, we can’t. We can have the whole world. No, we can’t. We can go everywhere. No, we can’t. It isn’t ours any more. It’s ours. No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back. But they haven’t taken it away. We’ll wait and see.’ (Hemingway). The impact on the reader will be that to them the couple are having issues but can get past them together. Also if they are willing to work together It shows that there is hope for the woman and the baby to be together and raised as a family. It shows that the man is being selfish in the relationship and they need to work together in order to overcome the huge obstacle that they are facing in their relationship.

Show More
Related

  • How Does Langston Hughes Use Strength In Mother To Son

    1500 Words  | 3 Pages

    Langston Hughes wrote during a very critical time in American History, the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote many poems, but most of his most captivating works centered around women and power that they hold. They also targeted light and darkness and strength. The Negro Speaks of Rivers and Mother to Son, both explain the importance of the woman, light and darkness and strength in the African-American community. They both go about it in different ways.

    Read More

  • Maya Angelou

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    This piece of autobiographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction

    Read More

  • Immorality in The love of My Life by T.C. Boyle and The Hills as White Elephants by Ernest Hemingwat

    864 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Hills as White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, tells a story about a couple who are expecting a baby, but want to have an abortion. The setting of the story takes places at a bar situated across of a train station in Madrid, Spain. The couple sits by the bar, and order some drinks. They began discussing about whether or not having the abortion. While they wait for the train the man convince the girl. Within the two works there are many similarities but also differences between the central idea, conflict and the language devices.

    Read More

  • Southern Road Literary Devices

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem “Southern Road” by Sterling Brown is about a man in prison contemplating his life. On either side of the jail fences, his life is depressing, and the blues tone sets the mood. Two prominent characteristics of the poem is the low language dialect and onomatopoeia. Brown uses these literary devices to paint a picture. He does not mention that the protagonist is black or that he is from the south, but from his dialect, the readers are able to tell his ethnicity. The literary devices used in the poem reveals the story of the protagonist and captivates the hardships of African American.

    Read More

  • James Weldon Johnson

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    Johnson's primary concerns were with the black writer. This included what the black author needs to know and what he must do in order to produce quality work. Johnson's ideas on blackness and the black author can be summarized in four statements: (1) black people have made significant contributions to American culture (2) black writers, to achieve thier best results, should treat black materials in their works (3) black people possess a unique racial spirit which can best be represented in literature by black writers, and (4) black w...

    Read More

  • Gwendolyn Brooks

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the idiom is local, the message is universal. Brooks uses ordinary speech, only words that will strengthen, and richness of sound to create effective poetry.

    Read More

  • Angelou And Hughes: Poem Analysis

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the perspective as an African American woman, Maya Angelou speaks of the issue of sexism in her poem. In this quote, “You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies…”, Angelou sheds light on the problems women faced during her time. Many had to also face the discrimination from men as men control them and put words in women’s mouths. This indicates the doubled amount of burden that African American women had to go through and it was important for Maya Angelou to speak of this issue through literature and give a voice to women who were struggling with the same conflicting situations. In contrast, Hughes’s, “I, Too,” poem states the African American inequality more generally than Angelou’s

    Read More

  • Edgar Allen Poe 's The Raven And For Annie

    1934 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast

    2123 Words  | 5 Pages

    When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...

    Read More

  • Analyzing Beloved and Things Fall Apart

    899 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both novels demonstrate the characteristics of gender, race, and family relations. Black culture has endured through challenges as represented in these books. Both books present the struggle that individuals go through regarding slavery or society changing. They present diverse stories regarding things actually falling apart in both books.

    Read More

  • How it Feels to be Colored Me by Hurston and Hughes’ The Negro Mother

    1238 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and differences of the voice and themes used with the works “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Hurston and Hughes’ “The Negro Mother”. The importance of these factors directly correlate to how each author came to find their literary inspiration and voice that attributed to their works.

    Read More

  • Analyzing History Lessons by Historical Criticism

    594 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, this poem shows the progression of desegregation throughout the south. When the poem is placed in context to the time in which it was written, it is easy to identify the injustices of African Americans. The most notable observation is when the beach is marked “colored” (Trethewey). Analyzing this poem via historical criticism allows the reader to fully understand the injustice and also experience the growth of society towards desegregation.

    Read More

  • The Themes of Abortion and Pregnancy in Hills Like White Elephants

    977 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hills Like White Elephants, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a story that takes place in Spain while a man and woman wait for a train. The story is set up as a dialogue between the two, in which the man is trying to convince the woman to do something she is hesitant in doing. Through out the story, Hemingway uses metaphors to express the characters’ opinions and feelings.

    Read More

  • Metaphors In Maya Angelou

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    Due to the time period she wrote in, Angelou would be criticized for her ability to write, “without apology,” of the fearful life she lived. However, now that is the reason as to why her work is so highly praised. Yet, critics feel as if Angelou’s work is simply overused and not appreciated for what it truly is. Instead of looking at Angelou as a poet, people look at her as an, “inspirational public speaker,” and can often be found on the front of a, “Hallmark greeting card,” instead of the pages in a textbook. Angelou doesn’t really show this criticism in her work but she does represent the criticism she received as African American woman poet in her time period. She often would discuss how people would misuse her race and treat them like nothing, and, “may trod” them “in the very dirt.” But despite these harsh criticisms of her work, Angelou continued writing of her struggles, and brought to life the hardships she had to face whilst living in this time period, which in the end, become what she was most critically acclaimed for, and the reason that out of the, “huts of history’s shame,” she conquered the fears, not only of her past, but of saying the words she used to be afraid to say.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    In a symbolic reading, the opening paragraph describes the crisis that exists in the marriage of the couple. In other words, the description of the bad weather, of the "empty square"[1](l.10) and of their isolation, reflects this conflict and also sets the negative mood. In fact, since the beginning, Ernest Hemingway insists on the isolation of the couple that "does not know any of the people they passed" (ll.1-2) and are "only two Americans"(l.1). Here it is interesting to notice that they are isolated from the outside world but also from each other. There is no communication and they have no contact, they are distant from each other.

    Read More

More about Stuggles of Women from Two Different Points of View

Open Document