Comparing Gender Roles In Hills Like White Elephants And Trifles

There are several similarities and differences in the way that Trifles and “The Story of an Hour” portray gender roles. Both of these stories portray two women very unhappy in their marriages and portray men as the dominant force. Trifles and “The Story of an Hour” both deal with very specific gender roles throughout the stories that relate to the time period they were written in.

In this deeper look into 'Trifles,' Karen goes through the plot and discusses what you should pay more attention too. She describes the symbolism in some of the objects as well as explain the scenes and their little details. Karen finds the difference between male and female perceptions of judgment to be central to the play. She explains that you need to follow the storyline of the women to help solve the case and discusses the differences between a man and a womans world in this time period. Karen shares that she believes the women are going about the case better than the men and she

The final theme derived from this story is how men and women relate to each other. Most of Hemingway’s stories are masculine in nature, but “Hills Like White Elephants” shows the woman’s point of view as the more rational of the two (Short Stories for Students 158). The man is shown as being selfish and irresponsible by starting this relationship and then lacking the support Jig needs (Hamid 78). The American sees life as being very straightforward and rational, while Jig is considered to be romantic and living in an emotional world (Beacham 8). Clearly, these themes are still applicable in modern societies concerning this issue of abortion.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, gender roles play a major role in how characters think about themselves and others. Men are raised to believe that they are responsible to suppress women’s independence and autonomy, and women often internalize a sense of inferiority and/or subservience. The results of these conditions often include men’s violence against women, and a general mistrust between the two genders. In this novel, Rasheed demonstrates this type of behavior to be true. Rasheed is a single shoemaker whose first wife and son died many years ago. He becomes the suitor for the young 15-year-old mariam. He is a very traditional and strict older gentleman, which some difficult situations for Mariam to deal with in her life. Rasheed tries to exhibit excessive dominance in their marriage and instructs Mariam to be obedient, subordinate, and compliant with every single one of his demands.

Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants is a short story written in 1927. The story consists of mostly dialogue between two characters and detailed descriptions of their setting. Taking place in the hills of Spain between Barcelona and Madrid, the two characters the American, or the man, and the girl who is sometimes referred to as Jig seem to question their level of happiness with one another and they have an apparent difficulty communicating with one another. There appears to be a rift between the two characters that only they know about. I question their tolerance for one another and their ability to stay together as they seem to be a committed couple. As in true Hemmingway style we only only know of the character by what they

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is a play that is largely based on stereotypes. The most prevalent one is the inferiority of women over men, though the play also explores the differences between genders in general.

Both Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants and John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums portray oppressed female characters in the early 1900s. In Hemingway’s short, Jig is oppressed by her lover known only as “The American,” whereas, the main character in The Chrysanthemums, Elisa Allen, feels the weight of oppression from society (male dominated) as a whole. Although the driving force of the two women’s subjugation varies slightly, their emotional responses to such are what differentiate the two.

The man, however, is not the sole contributor to the communication breakdown. Right away the girl begins to show her weakness and inability to express herself. When the man initially directs the conversation to the operation (abortion), her reaction is described: "The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on [and] . . . did not say anything" (275). Failure to state her conviction is illustrated in this example, and is further indicated by frail hints of her desire to keep the baby: "Once they take it away, you never get it back" (276). An obvious hint, yet she never clearly voices her hunger to have the baby. She continues to desire his will over hers in lines such as this one: "Then I?ll do it [have an abortion]. Because I don?t care about me" (275).

The men in this story are mocking the women, because they do not expect the women to know anything of importance, and to only know their “womanly” duties, which are deemed unimportant. Another similarity between the two works are the changes that the women undergo towards the end of the plays. In “Trifles”, the women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are stuck with the choice of aiding a murderer that was in an abusive relationship, or to tell their husbands what they have found:

Crying over spilled milk is silly, right? Worrying about the little, mundane things is pointless and a waste of time. In Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles, she demonstrates how being sensitive to the subtle details can be vital to solving a mystery. Throughout the one-act play, Glaspell highlights the theme of gender roles through the women’s worries, irony, and symbolism.

The Story of an Hour is short, yet, contains important examples of gender roles in marriage. They are important because they represent how women felt married in the 19th century due to male dominance that manifested throughout marriages all over the world. In The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard is a wife that is, at first, seen as distraught, because of her husband’s death. She starts to cry and run to her room, to soon be lifted with the joy that she is now free. It is clear that she felt trapped in the marriage and is now happy that there is no one controlling her any longer. Mrs. Mallard is a prime example of women in marriages in the 19th century, and even some today. Unfortunately, they have to experience sexism from their husbands. Women are dominated by men in marriage and are expected to acquire the stereotypical gender roles.

By doing this Hemingway succeededs in creating a character who cannot be respected but is instead pitied. In a discussion, with her American lover, Jig comments about the hills surrounding them, comparing them to white elephants, only for him to tell her that what she is saying is wrong. Rather than defend something that is her own opinion she changes the subject and later apologizes for saying it in the first place.

Throughout American history, stereotypes about gender socialization and gender roles have existed in society. During the late 19th to the early 20th century, genders roles began to shift. This is mainly due to the shift as more women took on more professional roles. Because of this shift, women became less reliant on male financial support, allowing them to be socially equal in the eyes of men. Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles makes a moving statement how the gender roles were in the early 20th century and how women were treated. The play takes place on a midwestern farm inside a farmer's house during this period. After law enforcement was called to investigate a crime scene, Mr. Hale belittles his wife, which in turn angers her. At this point, her perception changes and forms a feminine bond between herself and the Sherriff's wife. As a result, they begin to take the matter into their own hands. In George's Singleton's collection of short stories, The Half-Mammals of Dixie, his story "Public Relations" shows how professions and gender roles correlate with each other that takes place in the early 21st century. In the short story, the narrator and his wife sit at a bar joined by his boss and his wife to lure in a female business client. After the narrator makes a case on how the American education system is failing students by putting women with lower IQs to become teachers, he loses his job. This cause the perception of gender role to

Milton was, by no means, a feminist, and was of quite a conventional outlook when it came to gender roles as is apparent in the fourth book of Paradise Lost, which has inevitably been scrutinized over and over again under the modern gendered eye. “Paradise Lost,” says Shannon Miller, “is Milton’s most sustained attempt to represent in poetry, gander roles, relations and hierarchy.”It is evident, she points out, in the course of his introduction of Adam and Eve in book IV, the stories of creation they relate there and in book VIII, and finally in the way Milton presents the consequences of the Fall. The reader observes the process by which gender is created as a cultural category.

What Bailey McDaniel meant by this is that women couldn’t speak their ideas and how it was frustrating for them. Like in the play, the women were trying to help the men, but the men clearly didn’t want their help or they just make fun of them, as a result, the women took matters in their own hands. Not only does the title have symbolic meaning but also the names of the female characters are also symbolic.