Fighting for Feminism With a Fetus: “Hills Like White Elephants”
The empowerment and the continual push for equal status for women has become widely popular and successful in recent history. Women have stepped out of traditional roles of the housewife and mother to become the submissive doormat to more assertive natures. Many controversial issues surround women`s crusade of freedoms including the widely debated right to choose what they do with their body, referring to an abortion in “Hills Like White Elephants” and depression in “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
Gender roles had an impact on the woman in the short story “Hills Like White Elephants”. The personal evolution of the female protagonist can be divided into four major steps, the first revolves around the typical submissive and passive behaviour expected of a women. Through the ordering of drinks this demonstrates the gender role of male dominance and female submissiveness. The controlling manner displayed by the male character through ordering drinks is a stepping stone into his relentless pushing for her to receive an abortion. His oppressive nature is not only reflected at the bar but more importantly he displays a chauvinistic attitude in regards to the abortion as he states, “it`s really an awfully simple operation, Jig. Its not really an operation at all”(476). She attempts to downplay the procedure and with the continual pushing she agrees to do the procedure stating, “I don’t care about me. And ill do it and then everything will be fine”(477). The third stage takes strongly into account the setting of the story. She mentions earlier that the hills look like white elephants, an animal that is considered rare, precious and sacred symbolizing an unborn child.
The short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on the narrator’s nervous condition as she slowly loses sense of reality, the whole time being totally