Analysis Of Hills Like White Elephants And The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Gilman

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In the short stories, “Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway and “The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman, the authors demonstrate how the two men suffer from mental illness by portraying their domination of women for their own desires. Through the readers perceptive, one can gain interest in these stories through how the egoistic characters, American and John, are dominating their women for personal satisfaction. American and John show similarities through their lust, pride and betrayal in each of these stories. For instance, American wants the girl to get an abortion so he can free himself from a problem that he has helped created and is not convenient for his lifestyle. John wants to keep control of the unnamed narrator by secluding …show more content…
A reader can also conclude that Jig’s inability to speak Spanish in a predominantly Spanish population has her relying heavily on American to help her communicate with others. This reliance where Jig is somewhat inferior to American in terms of communication adds to Americans’ dominating complex. According to Stanley Renner from Illionas State University, “Moving On the Girl’s Side of Hills Like White Elephants” believes that American is the dominating one in the relationship as Jig loves him too much to form an opinion on whether or not she wants to get an abortion. Stanley quotes, “three-fifths of the story sketch in a classic portrait of the deferential female, without a strong identity, an accessory to the male, to whom she has accustomed to look” (2). Jig’s submissive personality allows for American to further solidify his domination within their relationship. Jig’s inability to argue with American in fear of him leaving her has her furthermore sacrificing her child and continuing in this dominating-submissive relationship. As American is dominating and selfish, he doesn’t understand nor does he wish to understand Jigs’ feelings and what she may go through after the abortion. Stanley quotes, “By making the American so cavalier about a procedure he knows nothing about, one that would be an ordeal not for him but for the girl, fraught not only with …show more content…
The male character, John is an aggressive man whose ignorance of his wife’s problems shows clearly throughout the story. John, like American, also likes to dominate his wife by treating her like a small child. The author, “Monumental feminism and literature’s ancestral house: Another look at the “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Janice Haney-Peritz who is also the department of English, Beaver College quotes, “the narrator realizes herself in spite of John, that it can also be said that she realizes is not “her” self but self endangered by John’s demands and desires”(8). Janice also feels that the narrator feels that John’s dream consist of the girl who “crawls around the perimeter of the master bedroom, bound by an umbilical cord that keeps her firmly in place” (8). A reader would also agree with Janice by the way John tries to control her like a small child by putting her in a room filled with wallpaper despite knowing she is unwell and that he is a doctor. John is a man who relies on ignoring the problems associated with the narrator and in result controls her like a small child as the critic Janice says, “bound by an umbilical cord” (8). John is a character who doesn’t understand his wife’s problems and only adds to these issues by suffocating her in a room of ugly wallpaper and barred

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