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Coming Of Age In Ernest Hemingway's The Girl

717 Words3 Pages

Approach I have chosen to comparatively analyse these two stories by using the story grammar. By doing so I am able to show how each components (characters, objects, structure, language, events, and location) in these stories contributes in representing the theme: “coming of age”. Theme Development The theme “coming of age”, can be described as the protagonist’s psychological and moral journey to define oneself. Through this process they become more awake to limitations, more realistic, and more mature. In the beginning of both stories, the protagonists are illustrated as sensitive and perhaps weak. It is clear in Hemingway’s, The Girl is dependent on The American, countlessly considering abortion in order for things to ‘be like they were’, …show more content…

This causes an emotional strain for the protagonist, thus fuelling her towards this quest of self-realisation. In Hemingway’s story, The Girl journeys into this quest when she awakes to the limitation of her decision -set by The American. The Girl tries to regain (or discover) her autonomy by rebelling. First rebelling inwardly through her subconscious by seeing the hills ‘…like white elephants’, and describing ‘the colouring of their skin through the trees.’ Moreover, she continues to rebel outwardly, by using sarcasm continuing to straightforwardly speak out against The American. For Munro’s protagonist, Janet fulfils this journey by finally acknowledging history and its repercussions. The predetermined faith of her father helps her reach this conclusion, especially as he consoles her about his regrets in “a wasted life” and reiterates his expectation of her. Firstly, his regrets makes her conclude that age and atrophy is inevitable and she too may have lived “a wasted life”. Secondly, she has allowed external factors -such as overcoming her father’s expectations, or illusions of Nicola’s leukaemia- influence her happiness and

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