Abstract
The essay discusses the three works, Lolita, Hills like White Elephants, and The Lottery, and the author’s criticisms of American culture in the texts. Lolita criticizes the mismatch of American and European cultures. Hills like White Elephants discuss the criticism on abortion. The lottery discusses violence in American society and how it only starts to matter when the person himself becomes the victim.
Introduction
In a comparison of the three works: Lolita, The Lottery, and Hills like White Elephants it is necessary to observe the latter two authors are American and the former is a Russian emigrant to America. Each author criticizes different aspects of American culture. Criticism as the basis of the story was only apparent in The Lottery whereas Lolita and Hills like White Elephants were based on the author’s ability to use language with criticisms of American culture ingrained in the plot.
Criticisms on Lolita
Lolita is the story of a middle-aged European man who is obsessed with prepubescent girls due to a childhood infatuation that ended in tragedy. It is the story of Humbert and how he robs a child of her innocence while portraying a sympathetic image of himself to the reader of his book. Throughout the entire book, there is an obvious set up of differences between European and American culture. In the novel, Humbert describes Europe that his upbringing in Europe has made him unique, unlike the Americans. He also attracts a lot of attention from American women because of his European pompadour and charm. Although the book is about a European man robbing the childhood of an American child Vladimir Nabokov’s skill lies in convincing the audience otherwise. Vladimir makes a pedophile’s case seem sympathetic through the use of language and develops the story in a way that makes the reader believe that it is an American child who is playing the role of seductress and not vice versa. This can be viewed as the author’s skill in writing or his criticism of American culture.
Vladimir criticizes American culture to be incompatible with European culture. This is highlighted in the story when Humbert marries Charlotte Haze and tries to educate and culture her according to European standards. Although Charlotte wants to be placed on a higher pedestal in Humbert’s eyes she fails repeatedly and Humbert ignores all her attempts as hopeless. When Charlotte dies and Humbert starts a perverted relationship with her daughter Dolores (Lolita) he becomes unsatisfied by what he had longed for. Humbert describes this phase of his life as a man seduced by a 12-year-old shallow American girl. He takes himself far away from the reality that Lolita is probably not happy with her current situation and feels like a prisoner due to circumstances she cannot get away from. Eventually, Lolita runs away with an American man and proves once again the theme of Ameri-Euro incompatibility in the novel.
The set of cultural references provided in the book are only about a small matter of American society and it can hardly stand for American culture as a whole. The book’s main theme is about creating a sympathetic story about an unsympathetic man. The book is limited to the incompatibility of both cultures co-existing together in the romantic world. The explanation for the continuous focus of American culture is due to the craft of storytelling devised by Vladimir to depict a sympathetic version of his protagonist.
Towards the end of the book when Humbert is in prison he looks back and says that he was not the one who was defiled by a shallow American girl but perhaps it was the other way around. He looks back and observes that he robbed Lolita of her innocence and childhood but still does not take complete blame for it.
Criticisms on The Lottery
The Lottery is written by American author Shirley Jackson in 1948 and the story revolves around an inhumane ritual in a small town in America. The story starts with a description of the town and the townsmen and why they are gathered by the square on the 27th of June. All the members of the town populated with 300 people gather around the square and every one chatters on as normal. Unlike the earlier piece of fiction, Lolita, Jackson’s story was written as a criticism of American culture as a basis. The author criticizes the anti-feministic views that might have been present in America at that time, violence in American society, and the act of hypocrisy. The main theme in the story highlights the presence of violence in American society.
This line from the beginning of the story starts the buildup of serious criticism. “The lottery was conducted–as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program…”(Jackson) This signifies the hypocrisy present in American culture and the pointless violence that went on. The lottery was an event where each year all the families in the town picked up a ticket from a black box to find out who would be sacrificed for the well-being of the current year. At first, the heads of all households draw a ticket from the box and it is better if the men do all the drawing.
This brings us back to the feministic aspect of the story. The women in the story are more than happy to be subservient to men, whether it be husbands, sons, or fathers to do all the official work in town. This forms a bigger picture of what the image of American women was around the period when the author was born. Jackson was born in the 1920s, the era of women being defined as housewives and objects of sexual desire to their husbands. Also, around that era, Alice Paul, the author of the Equal Rights Amendment had emerged and surprisingly many of the American women did not join hands with her to support her cause of feminism. Jackson criticizes this aspect of American society by highlighting that American women do not stand up for their rights although they are aware of them and are satisfied with their positions as inferior and unequal to men.
The next point Jackson highlights is about violence in American society. Examining the quote mentioned earlier the lottery is being conducted in the small town depicted in the story just like any other jovial event. Halloween, dance parties, and teenage programs are conducted in the same manner as the inhumane act of the lottery. Violence is a very big part of American society and how American citizens act upon it is far a cry from satisfactory according to Jackson. Any acts of violence serve as town gossip until there is another outbreak of inhumanity. Life goes on as normal although the lives of fellow Americans are destroyed. No one looks at violence as something they need to speak up about or take any action against unless they encounter it themselves.
Until there is a personal rendezvous with violence it is simply a matter of dinner time talk. In the story, no one condemns the act of castrating Tessie Hutchinson, the lucky woman who wins the lottery, except herself. She is fine with the entire ritual taking place as long the winner of the lottery is someone from the other family. She becomes distraught by the inhumanity of the entire process only when the lottery is won by her family. When the lottery is drawn once again within the Hutchinson family and Tessie is the winner she starts shrieking the words, “It isnt fair”. Only after she becomes the victim she realizes how unfair the entire system is. Jackson views Americans as selfish people who only start to plead a cause if they have been victimized instead of realizing the dire circumstances and helping others.
The cultural references to American society in the story cannot be criticized like the ones in Lolita because the author in this case is American and the purpose of her story was criticism and not an underlying notion of romance and the power of language. Jackson criticizes many different aspects of American society and particularly feminism perhaps because she was a part of that era. Although it can be understood why Jackson might have so many criticisms about American society most of them are largely pessimistic and represent Americans as inhumane people which is not true as a whole.
Criticisms on The Hills like White Elephants
The third piece of work, Ernest Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants, talks about abortion. The word abortion is not present anywhere in the story but the message is delivered through the setting, the comparison to nature, and dialogue. The story is set in a railway station in Spain that is placed strategically between greenery, ‘hills like white elephants’, and barren ground. The symbolism of the environment provides the imagery of being fertile and pregnant and the idea of abortion through the brown and barren land. A couple is having drinks in this railway station while waiting for their train.
It is specified in the story that the husband is an American. Throughout the story, it is apparent that the husband likes a responsibility-free lifestyle and is trying to convince his wife to abort the child they have conceived. “He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights.” (Hemingway) The labels on the luggage from different hotels signify the couple’s current lifestyle. Although this lifestyle is dear to the man’s heart in the story the woman has grown weary of it. “That’s all we do, isn’t it – look at things and try new drinks?”(Hemingway) This is rhetorical question is a response by the wife to her husband when he suggests they try a new drink. She has grown tired of her life as it is now and has started to dream of the idea of a complete family. The entire dialogue present in the story focuses on the husband’s efforts to convince his wife that abortion is a simple procedure and that it does not hurt at all. Hemingway criticizes American culture, especially American men because he highlights his male character as American at the beginning of the story. The American man is presented in a negative role throughout the entire story because he overlooks his wife’s feelings on the matter although he states that he would ‘go through with it if it seemed important to his wife but it is apparent by his tone that he does not mean what he says. Through this character, Hemingway criticizes American culture and the values of American men.
The references to culture in this text are obvious but it seems that the story was written to reveal an idea through other symbols and not simply by saying it rather than a criticism of American culture. Although criticism was not the basis, it can be viewed throughout the entire piece and is apparent because it could have easily been prevented has the nationality of the man been hidden from the reader.
Conclusion
All three works criticize various aspects of American society despite their initial purpose of writing the book. The authors discuss violence, pedophilia, and violence in American society. Although the initial purposes of the works might be different they are united because each of them criticizes an aspect of American culture.
References
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills like White Elephants.” Hills Like White Elephants Complete Story. machette. 2008. Web.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Classic Authors. 2008. Web.
Vladimir, Nabokov. Lolita. Vintage, 1989.