Male Motives for Dominant Control in Hemingway and Gilman In both the “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, there is an institution of a domineering patriarchal system that is ruling over the women of both stories through their male partners. The male characters in both stories are evidently using their dominance to manipulate the women in way that benefits them only. Using evidence from critic reviews and the text of the stories, it can be proven that both the American and John are consciously condescending their female counterparts in order to reap benefits of their own. Both of these stories are set in the Nineteenth Century where male dominance is a common occurrence
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By doing so, John only furthers her state of illness by limiting her ability to use her mind and establish her own thoughts. This is made clear in Gilman’s story when the narrator says “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word" (377). This illustrates to the reader that John has established a rule against writing in her journal and says that writing is not good for people who are ill and that it will impede her healing. However, writing in her journal is the only thing that’s keeping her from going completely insane in total isolation. However, she cannot do so freely and has to hide her journal so that John does not find it. Furthermore, in “Doctoring The Yellow Wallpaper” by Jane F. Thrailkill, it is illustrated that Gilman’s own rest treatment is portrayed in the story through Jane, which has been known as the “patriarchal silencing of women” (526). This just proves that John has influenced her mental control, which inevitably affects her physical actions by isolating her and extremely limiting her ability to exercise her …show more content…
The story begins in a train station, which signifies that they have been travelling, along with the labels from “all the hotels where they had spent nights” (132), which also correlates to their sexual relations that the pregnancy most likely derived from. In Stanley Renner’s “Moving to the Girl’s Side of ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” it is said that “This is a male’s sexual playhouse, which, not surprisingly, the American is loath to give up” referring to the hotels (29). From this it can be said that the American is for having the abortion in order to continue having his freedom of travelling and casual
By doing so, John only furthers her state of illness by limiting her ability to use her mind and establish her own thoughts. This is made clear in Gilman’s story when the narrator says “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word" (377). This illustrates to the reader that John has established a rule against writing in her journal and says that writing is not good for people who are ill and that it will impede her healing. However, writing in her journal is the only thing that’s keeping her from going completely insane in total isolation. However, she cannot do so freely and has to hide her journal so that John does not find it. Furthermore, in “Doctoring The Yellow Wallpaper” by Jane F. Thrailkill, it is illustrated that Gilman’s own rest treatment is portrayed in the story through Jane, which has been known as the “patriarchal silencing of women” (526). This just proves that John has influenced her mental control, which inevitably affects her physical actions by isolating her and extremely limiting her ability to exercise her …show more content…
The story begins in a train station, which signifies that they have been travelling, along with the labels from “all the hotels where they had spent nights” (132), which also correlates to their sexual relations that the pregnancy most likely derived from. In Stanley Renner’s “Moving to the Girl’s Side of ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” it is said that “This is a male’s sexual playhouse, which, not surprisingly, the American is loath to give up” referring to the hotels (29). From this it can be said that the American is for having the abortion in order to continue having his freedom of travelling and casual