Friday 23 July 2010

From a feminist point of view, what does it mean to be Jig in "Hills Like White Elephants"?

In Hemingway's
story, "," Jig finds herself defined and differentiated with reference to her lover. 
For while she "just know[s] things," the man presents reasons to her for the
"awfully simple operation."  He externalizes their discussion and reduces the abortion
to a mechanical process--"They just let the air in and then it's all perfectly
natural."  Nor does he recognize Jig's comments such as "once they take it away, you
can't get it back," contradicting her, "But they haven't taken it
away."

That the man perceives things in the rational here and now and
not the intuitive sense of how their lives will be altered as does Jig is evinced in his
inability to notice their surroundings.  For instance, when she points to the hills that look
like white elephants, he dismisses this observation with a curt, "I've never seen
one." He looks up the tracks, "but could not see the train."  But, when he looks
at the people, he sees that "[T]hey were all waiting reasonably for the
train."

Jig, however, is sitting on the other side of the bead curtain. 
She smiles and tells the man, "there's nothing wrong with me.  I feel fine."   With
this statement, Jig has broken free of the man's reasonable restrictions upon her.  She now has
defined herself, "I feel fine."  From this statement, the suggestion that Jig has
broken free from her male-dominated relationship.

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