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Compare The Yellow Wallpaper And Hills Like White Elephants

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Is It Happily Ever After, or Happily Never After? Romance, most women want the fairy tale. Man, and woman meet, man sweeps woman off her feet, they fall madly in love, they get married, and then they live happily ever after. However, the saying of happily ever after is questionable in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”. In both stories the women are in one sided relationships where the men tend to dictate what the women will do and how they will feel, which in turn creates conflict in the relationships. Hemingway and Gilman use a similar portrayal of the women being oppressed and who give into the demands of their men at the expense of their own happiness, however Hemingway’s male character appears to be more loving and affectionate and the female tends to be a little more outspoken while Gilman’s male character is more of a dictator and the female quieter. The main female characters in both The Yellow Wallpaper and Hills Like White Elephants are seemingly weak and vulnerable which is brought on by their men, while the men in each story are the primary decision makers. The communication going on between the girl, called Jig and her boyfriend, the American in the story, Hills Like White Elephants, is not an honest one. The boyfriend seems to lead the conversation whereas the girl is quiet. They are talking about an operation, which is believed to be an abortion. The boyfriend never says the term abortion, he continues to call it an operation that is no big deal to manipulate her into thinking that it really is
Francis 2 not a big deal at all. He even states that it really isn’t even an operation. The boyfriend keeps insisting that they will be happy after it is done and that the baby is making them unhappy. He states, “That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.” (Hemingway 924) He was referring to the baby. The girl questions him asking if he thinks they will be happy afterward to which his reply is “I know we will.” (Hemingway 925) The girl is clearly torn on what to do, but the man has his mind made up that he does not want the baby or care about it. He does not even understand that when she

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