ipl-logo

Characterization Of Women In Hemingway

990 Words4 Pages

Women’s Characterization in Hemingway Erica Jong once said, “Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.” Throughout history, women have been pushed around, their voices silenced, their opinions challenged; women had to fight for their rights. Similarly, in Hemingway’s short stories, “Cat in the Rain” and “Hills Like White Elephants,” women are often in relationships in which they do not have an equal say, they are sad and longing for more than they have. Hemingway undermines the significance and value of the women in his stories. The women are in unaffectionate, unfulfilling relationships with men who do not encourage their independence, choices, and opinions, therefore they are miserable. In the …show more content…

The American man enjoys traveling with Jig, but he not want to be tied down because of a baby. He tries to talk Jig into the operation by referring to the abortion as a “simple” operation multiple times throughout this story. He lacks an sympathetic view of Jig’s situation and while he does state numerous times, “ …I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to” is followed with, “ …it [the operation] is perfectly simple” (Hemingway). The man did not bother to question Jig on how she truly felt about the pregnancy. He states that the pregnancy is, “ … the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (Hemingway). She asks her partner multiple times if the abortion will make him happy and if the operation would end their fighting. He persuades Jig by stating he knows numerous people who have do the operation and he says he thinks it is the best thing to do. It seems as though Jig has been conditioned to listen to the man’s wants because she states, “Then I’ll do it [the operation]. Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway). She merely wishes to please the man and does not even consider her own feelings on the issue. He is the only importance and obligation to Jig, which is why she became very passive and accepted his demands. Hemingway shows the readers that what Jig wanted did not matter because the most important thing she needed to do was to please the

Show More
Related

  • Their Eyes Were Watching God And Hurston's Treatment Of Women

    620 Words  | 3 Pages

    The man she is with keeps pushing her to make a life-changing decision about an abortion and she says, “I realize… Can’t we maybe stop talking?,” (Hemingway 3). Including this issue specifically is bold for Hemingway as it is controversial, yet he crafts it to bring even more attention to the Girl’s rights and intentionally characterizes her with this strong will and independence. She later threatens to scream, demonstrating that the Girl is unafraid to bring attention to this altercation. Hemingway provides the Girl with a voice that many women did not have. The man craves authority and manipulates her by saying, “I think [getting the abortion is] the best thing to do.

    Read More

  • Agency In Romeo And Juliet And West Side Story

    1033 Words  | 5 Pages

    While looking through a feminist lens and reading/watching both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, one notices a lot about women. How they are depicted, how they’re treated, and what opportunities they’re given. However, the question most observed in both stories is how much agency they have. Agency is defined as the ability to change their circumstances and when analyzing text in a feminist perspective, women often have little to no agency. From a feminist literary lense, both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story depict female characters with agency stripped from them.

    Read More

  • Feminist Lens In Othello

    1183 Words  | 5 Pages

    All throughout time women have been treated differently from men. They were not given a voice or trust but was it for the better? I am deciding to defend feminist because women need to be treated better and in this essay i will show you how women were treated and why it 's wrong. Although i believe in defending feminism some believe women should not be treated equal. I am explaining this through showing that men were not expected to love their wives.

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Literary Analysis

    1554 Words  | 7 Pages

    Throughout the short story (1), “Hills Like White Elephants,” Ernest Hemingway is speaking about a seemingly unwanted pregnancy and a woman’s uneasiness with going through an abortion. However, Hemingway never explicitly says in this work of fiction (2) that it is about abortion or that the woman, Jig, is uncomfortable with it, but uses symbolism (3) to present this to the audience. At the time “Hills like White Elephants” was published, in 1927, abortion was illegal in most places and a very taboo subject that wasn’t to be openly discussed in public. Thus, Hemingway relied greatly upon the use of symbolism to get his message across for this reason as well as the third person narrator (4) that did not give insight into the character’s thoughts within this piece of literature (5) . He uses symbols such as the train station, white hills, the baggage, and the drinks to point towards the underlying internal conflict (6) of Jig’s decision that is being heavily influenced by the American man, who wants Jig to get the abortion.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper And Aunt Jennifer's Tigers: A Literary Analysis

    982 Words  | 4 Pages

    Awesome Title in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich The feminist movement has grown and spread in the past decade. Women all over the world are standing up for basic rights, such as education, that all people, regardless of gender can enjoy. This movement is not a new one, though. Women from times past had already started paving the way towards some of the rights women have today.

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Jig Character Analysis

    699 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants”, the American and Jig are like parallel lines, they can never meet. As they struggle to find common ground, the very discussion that can bring them together only tears them apart. The relationship between Jig and the American is complex from the very beginning since their personalities, methods of communicating, and desires are different. The American represents infertility, selfishness and death but how can he not be when he’s a single man, traveling, trying new drinks, spending nights in hotels with no worry about money and now he has impregnated a women, of course he will lose his zest for her (Hannum).

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Rhetorical Analysis

    739 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout their conversation, you can decipher a tone where the conversation sheds light on his feelings towards the procedure and her feelings. He says “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig. It’s not really an operation at all” (Hemingway 124), in an effort to persuade her to in fact have the abortion. She, on the other hand, seems silent at first, but then questions how their life will be better after this procedure. Her uncertainty shows in her responses, and in other findings “… the sensuous beauty of a love relation that is quickly deteriorating, now that she has become conscious of her lover’s selfishness” (Maynard 273).

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Literary Criticism

    1098 Words  | 5 Pages

    Which is making him more selfish and he does not to have any responsibilities. Also, the reader is also left with a great doubt, as there is no solution. Jig is a Spanish pregnant girl, and she is about to have an abortion. She seems young because she is depending on a careless man.

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephant Symbolism Analysis

    1012 Words  | 5 Pages

    This story symbolizes a couple’s opinion about life. It also symbolizes how people approach different opportunities that come through the course of life. The man clearly wants to live a life that is favored around living care free and traveling. He wants to see and do as much as possible with less responsibilities. Jig, the women in the relationship, is seemingly interested in keeping the child.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Ernest Hemingway

    889 Words  | 4 Pages

    He couldn't stand things, I guess." "Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?" "Not very many, Nick." (Hemingway, Indian Camp, p. ) Hemingway’s construction of gender identity is a theme intrinsically seen as part of his works.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Abortion In Hills Like White Elephants

    893 Words  | 4 Pages

    The conflict between the two characters is the issue of abortion and whether or not the girl will go through it. Hemingway does not tell us that the girl is pregnant but hints it throughout the story referring to “the operation” as having an abortion. From the start, you can take

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Character Analysis

    1044 Words  | 5 Pages

    According to Smiley, “The dialogue contains the essence of the story's power; for to read Jig's and the American conversation is to recognize the powerless frustration of parallel interchanges” (2). The girl's character passes changes throughout the story. It appears that “Hemingway works out the story's conflict, which revolves around the development of his female character” (Renner 28). The girl gains power and frees herself from the following the American man. In the beginning of the story, the girl take the initiative to speak which leads to the discussion: “'what should we drink?'

    Read More

  • The Dialogue In Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

    1629 Words  | 7 Pages

    The dialogue in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” reveals a man’s and a woman’s incongruent conflict on abortion, and the author’s fundamentally feminist position is visible in the portrayal of the woman’s independent choice of whether or not to keep the baby she is carrying. The plot is very simple in the story which is less than 1500 words long. A woman and a man spend less than an hour on a hot summers day at a Spanish train station in the valley of Ebro as they are waiting for a train heading for Madrid. Their dialogue takes up most of the space and only few major actions take place.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of Hills Like White Elephants, By Ernest Hemingway

    2016 Words  | 9 Pages

    If taken literally, Hemingway’s story is one in which very little happens. The story takes place in a train station in Spain where a couple argue about a vague event over drinks. From the very start of the short story, there is an overbearing uneasiness felt in the text as the unnamed male and the girl, Jig, hold what seems to be—on the surface—an innocent conversation. By using a limiting third person point of view that consists mostly of dialogue, Hemingway creates an obstacle in the way of understanding as there is no clear insight to what is going on inside of either party’s head. The conflict that the pair seem to be discussing is never named and it becomes the metaphorical elephant in the room much like the white elephants that Jig sees in the mountains.

    Read More

  • Role Of Women In Literature

    1495 Words  | 6 Pages

    The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.

    Read More

More about Characterization Of Women In Hemingway

Open Document