1
Lee
Brian Lee
Dr. Dan Anderson
ENGL 123
28 June 2010
The Role of Gender in The Yellow Wallpaper and Hills Like White Elephants
The easiest way to divide up the human population into two groups is by gender. It is the most basic way to identify a human being. Male and female are opposites of each other, but they are also complements of each other. In our society, however, there is an imbalance of power between male and female. In general, men have more power, hold better jobs and on average get paid more. In other words, men are generally the more dominant ones. The reason can be traced back to the caveman days. Men are generally stronger than women, which is the most basic way of distributing power. Although our society has recently started to shift, distributing power more evenly, there is still an imbalance of power between genders. The Yellow Wallpaper written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was published in the late 19th century and Hills Like White Elephants written by Ernest Hemingway was published in the early 20th century. These were time periods when women still had less-than-equal social and political power. In the first piece, The Yellow Wallpaper, the husband constantly controls his wife. She almost feels obligated to succumb to his decisions and demands and never bothers to ask why. The second piece, Hills Like White Elephants, was a little different because the man seems to respect the girl’s opinions and is willing to listen to her thoughts. There seems to be a more even distribution of power between the male and the female in Hills Like White Elephants than in The Yellow Wallpaper.
The Yellow Wallpaper is an eerie story that draws in the readers with the use of first person narrative. This is significant because we are able to look through the eyes of the woman, whose name is never mentioned formally.Although the downside is that we can hardly tell what the husband might be thinking, we can certainly tell what the woman is thinking. We are introduced to her husband, John, who is a physician of “high standing” (Gilman 16). There seems to be an imbalance of power or a sense of respect when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (Gilman 16). She is suggesting that in marriage the woman should expect the man’s tendency to downplay her opinions, which shows less respect for woman. She also talks about how she is not able to tell anybody about her serious illness because her husband, who is not only a physician of high standing, but also “one’s own husband” (Gilman 16) tells people that she is suffering from a simple nervous depression. This suggests the notion that the husband has more impact and influence in his words than the wife. Later on, we can observe more male dominant examples when she says, “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 18). This suggests the fact that the man should know everything, does know everything and if he does not know the reason, then there is no reason. This is very unfortunate for the woman, as she has no say in matters involving knowledge. Another example of such male dominance and less significance of female is John’s sister. “She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession” (Gilman 20). This idea seems more significant as the husband and the brother of the woman are physicians of high standing, while John’s sister is just a housekeeper and does not want any other job. This portrays the idea of men holding more powerful and professional jobs while the women hold jobs with less social impact and therefore have less power. In addition, we are told that the woman’s brother is also a physician of high standing. Here, both men in this story are physicians of high standing. This gives you the impression that the men seem to have greater power. It also helps portray the period accurately as most if not all physicians at the time were men.
Hills Like White Elephants is also not your typical short story. At first, you feel as if you are reading chapters eight through nine on a ten-chapter novel. In other words, the story does not start out with a “Once upon a time…” but instead starts out in a random setting with a man and a girl sharing what seems to be a vague conversation. The significance of this story is the names given to the two main characters: The American/man and the girl. Hemingway does not identify females as “girl” since he says, “a woman asked from the doorway” (Hemingway 149) and that woman refers to the bartender at the train station. At one point, the American calls the girl “Jig” (Hemingway 150), which seems like a name that would be given to a little girl suggesting that she is not treated as a woman. The story has to be taken at a whole to really understand the balance of power between genders. The man says, “It’s really an awfully simple operation” (Hemingway 150) and he continues to suggest to the girl throughout the whole story. Unlike The Yellow Wallpaper, however, she is good at refusing his suggestions and demands. She questions his opinions and asks for respect. At one point she says, “Would you please please plese… stop talking?” (Hemingway 152). This is significant because a girl is telling the man to shut up about matters and let her think in peace. This would have been unthinkable in the previous story. The man is willing to do anything for her, whether out of desperation or simply love, and they seem to come to a mutual agreement, which is different than a man forcing a woman to come to an agreement.
Both The Yellow Wallpaper and Hills Like White Elephants were published in the same period in late 19th century and early 20th century. But one is different from the other in terms of distribution of power and respect. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the men definitely seem to have more social power and social impact than the women and the women are forced to listen and respect their husbands. On the other hand, Hills Like White Elephants involve a man and not a woman but a girl. Yet, there seems to be an even distribution of power and respect in terms of what each person has to say about matters. There is definitely a significant role that each gender plays in our society and it is the interaction between the two that creates a society.
Works cited:
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Hudson Book Of Fiction. Ed.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 16-28.
Hemmingway, Ernest. "Hills Like White Elephants." The Hudson Book of Fiction. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 149-152.