The relationship between men and women in both stories is dictated by patriarchal societal norms
Relationship between men and women where the former dominate the latter is the central theme in the two stories “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Hills like White Elephants.” However, there is a slight difference in the portrayal of such relationship in both stories. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the relationship is not based on equality; men are not only considered superior to women, but the men, supported by patriarchal society, indulged in various forms of discrimination against women; on the other hand, in “Hills like White Elephants,” even though the woman is also ensnared in her gender role of those times (Siciles), there are several alleviating factors that make the equality between men and women not so lopsided in favor of males.
The relationship in Gilman’s story is totally lopsided in favor of men
The central theme of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” published in 1892, is the subordination of women in marriage during the early 1900s in the U.S. Gilman uses her story to criticize Anglo-American male and societal attitudes toward married women in the U.S. She depicts the traditional nineteenth century male and societal view of marriage among middle class Anglo-American individuals that involved a clear-cut distinction between the responsibilities of a man and his wife. The man was engaged in active employment and provided for the family. The wife was expected to provide physical satisfaction to her husband, bear children, look after her husband and children and take care of all the household chores.
Gilman depicts total male domination over women by showing 4 typical discriminatory norm
The first discriminatory male and societal norm was that women were not expected to voice their opinion; if they did, the content was dismissed as trivial and inconsequential. At the beginning of the story, the narrator gives her opinion about the summer vacation house to which her husband brought her. She admires its grandeur, romantically calling it “a colonial mansion” and even “a haunted house” (Gilman 729), wondering why it was untenanted for so long, and comes to the conclusion that something is not right about it. When she questions John as to why such an elegant property is rented so cheaply, he dismisses her remarks as trivia, not allowing her to indulge in self-expression (Voth). While John’s overall aim is commendable , his failing is the self-awarded overwhelming authority that makes him convinced his diagnosis is correct. This causes him to turn a blind eye to his views on the subject. As an offshoot of this attitude, John does not take her seriously when she dares to voice her displeasure about the yellow wallpaper. On the contrary, he chides her by saying she is being paranoid about it. When she persists about her displeasure and requests him to repaper the room, he refuses, saying she was “letting it get the better” of her (Gilman 734).
The second discriminatory male and societal norm were that husbands misjudged their wives. The misjudgment was based on the conviction that the women did not possess sufficient intellect to assess situations correctly. John brings his wife to the summer vacation house to help her recover from “temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 730). A doctor by profession, he diagnoses his wife’s ailment as curable by rest. When she persists in claiming that the ‘rest’ cure is not working, he becomes impatient and irritated, snapping that the “worst thing” she could do was to “think about her condition” (Gilman 730) and threatening to send her to see a specialist named Weir Mitchell. The poor woman is terrified of exacerbating her condition by visiting Mitchell because she has heard disparaging reports about him from a friend who said he was not extraordinary but just like any other doctor (Gilman 737). The narrator’s deteriorating condition manifests itself in her growing fixation and displeasure about the yellow wallpaper as she begins seeing imaginary patterns of “a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern,” going on to add “I don’t like it one bit” (Gilman 739). John totally misjudges his wife by not bothering to listen to her increasingly agitated remarks about the wallpaper, instead of telling her to snap out of it and not let “any silly fancies run away” with her (Gilman 739).
The third discriminatory male and the societal norm were to consider women incapable of being highly educated, and that literary concepts or creative writings taxed their delicate nature with “excited fancies” (Gilman, 6). Male and societal reactions tended to be particularly displeased if women tried to break this tradition and engage in writing. This discriminatory male and societal attitude are reflected in events where the writer hurries to hide her journal whenever John or his sister Jennie enters the room for fear that it will be snatched from her. She is particularly afraid of John’s disapproval if he finds out about her writing either directly “I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word” (Gilman 733) or if she is caught doing it by Jennie and she reports it to him “I must not let her find me writing” (Gilman 736). A side effect of this intellectual repression was to give women an inferiority complex, making them think their well-educated husbands were superior to them. In the story, the narrator tamely submits to the superiority of her husband, “acknowledging she is inferior” (Voth). Instead of being angry with John for not listening to the explanation of her medical problem, she makes excuses for him “It is so hard to talk with John about my case because he is so wise” (Gilman, 738) and belittles herself by saying she is a “comparative burden” to her husband (Gilman 734).
The fourth discriminatory male and the societal norm was the notion that women belonged within the boundaries of their houses and they belonged to their husbands. The narrator becomes stifled by her continuous confinement, “trapped in this atrocious nursery” (Gilman 734). She vows to herself that she would never allow “a child of mine to live in such a room for worlds” (Gilman 739). An intellectual in her own right, she struggles against societal perception. “Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work with excitement and change would do me good. But what is one to do” (Gilman, 731). John displays the possessive trend by his patronizing attitude towards the narrator. He treats her like a small child {“John gathered me up in his arms and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed”} (Gilman, 739).
The effect of the four discriminatory male and societal norms on the narrator is to make her struggle to break free from its increasingly repressive hold on her. When she disintegrates into hallucinations even becoming quite “fond of the room” (Gilman 738) by the end and finally, into madness, she turns into the imaginary woman trapped in the wallpaper, a transposing of her self-image of one who is trying to break out of the restraining bars of discriminatory male and societal norms that are stifling her. She ultimately becomes a victim of her unfulfilled craving for self-expression, seeming to foreshadow her destiny by the words she uses to describe the patterns of the wallpaper: “suddenly committing suicide [by] destroying themselves in unheard of contradictions” (Voth), meaning her fate, a descent into madness, will mark a revolt against societal traditions that expected her to go on docilely submitting to the oppressive will of her husband.
The relationship in Hemingway’s story is significantly less lopsided in favor of men
Hemingway published ‘Hills like White Elephants’ in 1920 in the third-person perspective that restricts the tale to the words and actions of the characters. The plot of the tale revolves around the relationship between the man and woman what is uncovered by the conversation between them. Hemingway does not reveal the ages of the man and woman. They are lovers. The man is an American who is apparently financially well-off , while the girl’s nationality is not known. The girl is pregnant as a result of their sexual relationship; the couple has traveled to Spain with the aim of having her undergo an abortion. Hemingway informs about Jig and the American without actually informing about them by ensuring overall brevity in a presentation that is exquisitely coupled appropriate adverbs and adjectives; apart from this, he powerfully uses two literary elements: setting and symbolism while he dwells on the relationship between the man and woman.
The tale covers a very brief time span, yet it succeeds in relating a story that has a much wider scope than itself (Stukas). Hemingway ensures brevity by using short sentences and paragraphs shorn of verbosity. He makes little use of adverbs and adjectives. In addition to descriptive adverbs like ‘angrily,’ he uses ‘perfectly simple’ and ‘perfectly natural’ to describe the operation and ‘afterward’ being the post-abortion period referred to by the man. He uses descriptive adjectives like ‘lovely’ hills, ‘nice and cool’ beer and ‘warm’ wind. He uses descriptive verbs like ‘amused,’ ‘worry,’ ‘happy,’ ‘upset’ and ‘afraid’ to describe the couple’s feelings that reflect on their relationship at various stages of the story.
The setting establishes an undercurrent of tension that prevails between the man and woman throughout the story. The conversation between them takes place while they are at a railway station in Spain (Stukas). The “station was between two lines of rails” (Hemingway) indicate the couple presently embroiled in the throes of a vital decision in their lives that involves two choices that are opposite in nature . The addition of the words: “There was no shade and no trees” (Hemingway) indicates that the pending decision is a drastic one; there is no way out and the couple has to deal with it immediately.
Hemingway uses 4 symbolisms to depict the relationship between men and women
The use of symbolism to emphasize the relationship between the man and woman starts soon after the waitress serves two glasses of beer. When Jig looks “far off at the line of hills” and remarks that “they look like white elephants” (Hemingway), she is delightedly foreseeing the birth of her child – something extraordinary that is also steeped in divinity . In addition, white elephants are costly animals to own and very expensive to rear; as they are looked upon as holy animals, they are prevented from doing any work, and as a result, become financial burdens whereby possessing them may be a source of pride and pleasure, but also causes a disadvantage (Stukas).
The second symbolism involves absinthe and licorice. The girl remarks that the green, aphrodisiac liqueur tastes like licorice . It suggests their life pattern has become so casual and insignificant that even a bitter situation is trivialized and the sexual pleasure that was involved is forgotten. Jig stands up and walks to the end of the station, observing “fields of grain and trees along the bank of the Ebro” (Hemingway). The fields and trees stand for fertility and prolificacy that represent Jig’s present pregnancy; river Ebro, which provides life-giving water for the fields and trees, symbolizes the life that the growing in Jig’s womb.
But then the “shadow of a cloud” (Hemingway) that symbolizes the impending abortion, dispels Jig’s happiness and optimism. She converses with the man and it is very apparent that he prefers the abortion, and everything he says is aimed at convincing her to undergo it. As she ponders his point of view, Jig “looked across the hills on the dry side of the valley” (Hemingway) which is dull and devoid of vegetation, representing her body in the aftermath of the abortion operation. When the man persists in talking about the abortion, she reveals her growing frustration by blurting: “Would you please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking” (Hemingway).
Hemingway next uses another adroit bit of symbolism to give readers an insight into the American. The man “looked at the bags” which had “labels on them from all the hotels where they had spent nights” (Hemingway). The American comes across as one who likes to travel extensively and enjoy female companionship without commitment. He favors abortion because he will not be forced to marry Jig and settle down thereby giving up his much cherished free lifestyle. He is so unscrupulous that he is ready to kill a human being to preserve his freedom.
Modern readers find it easier to identify with the relationship in Hemingway’s story
The story ends with the awaited train about to arrive at the station. The train represents the travel of life. It can be progressive or regressive . The two movements symbolize the unsteady relationship between the man and woman. In addition, the very short stopping time of the train at the station is suggestive of the brief time available to the girl to undergo the abortion.
Hemingway tosses up another enigma at the end of the story. In doing so, he succeeds well in exposing a facet of human nature that shows how we often tend to go against our better judgment and engage in undesirable actions just in order to either gratify another person or keep up the status quo (Stukas). When the man enquires how she feels, Jig replies: “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine” (Hemingway). The words have 3 interpretations: Jig has made up her mind to have the abortion; she has decided not to undergo the abortion and give birth to her child, or she has decided to temporarily shut the matter from her mind and leave the abortion decision for another day. At the end of the tale, it is quite obvious that the vast majority of what is transpiring is not clear but left to the conclusion of the reader.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while “The Yellow Wallpaper” was looked upon as a powerfully shocking story when it was published in 1892, it has the power to shock its readers even today. However, there is a significant difference. The readers in 1892 were shocked at the boldness of a woman who dared to posit their male and societal norms as grievous flaws. Modern readers, on the contrary, are shocked at the blatantly discriminatory way women were treated by men and society during that period which created a totally lopsided relationship between men and women. Discrimination in all forms provokes the interest of readers because it is a commonly encountered problem even in the modern world of today – one that affects the equal relationship between men and women. On the other hand, while the relationship between the man and woman in “Hills like White Elephants” is unstable, it is characterized by a little equality between the two sexes. While Jig is too dependent on the man, asking his opinion even about silly things like “What should we drink…..Should we have another drink?” (Siciles), she is not totally trapped by societal rules as the woman in Gilman’s story. Firstly, the couple is free to carry on their affair openly without societal backlash, and secondly, the woman is free to choose whether or not to have an abortion – a matter of vital significance that lay at the heart of the Feminist Movement. These two aspects make the relationship between men and women in “Hills like White Elephants” quite similar to what modern readers are accustomed to seeing around them in their everyday life.
References
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings.” USA: Bantam Classic Books. 1989.
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills like White Elephants.” Virginia Commonwealth University. (N.d). Web.
Siciles, Daniel de Bourbon-Deux. “Ernest Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants Analysis.” Associated Content. 2009. Web.
Stukas, Jake. “Literary Analysis: Hills like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway.” Helium, Inc. 2009. Web.
Voth, Lori. “Literary Analysis: ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Associated Content. 2005. Web.