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Hills Like White Elephants Gender Roles Essay

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Oday Alyatim Gender Studies Prof Qualls Hills Like White Elephants In the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, the characters Jig and the man are out on vacation traveling from Barcelona to Madrid through train. While at the train station, they experience began talking about an operation, how they discuss getting this operation shows the strong gender roles between Jig and the man. Jig seems to be the happy girl who wants to make the man happy, and the man seems to have all the control verbally, in the relationship. When the story starts, Jig looks across to the line of hills and “they look like white elephants”, and the man says “I’ve never seen one”, which leads to Jig saying “no you wouldn’t have”, the man follow up with “I might have, just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything”. Then Jig changes the subject. Breaking down that conversation, you see the dominance the man his in the relationship. After saying he hasn’t, he didn’t take kindly to Jig arguing back. So to avoid an argument, Jig starts talking about the beads on the door steers the conversation away from the hills showing feminine style traits in building partnership. The man did …show more content…

Throughout most of their conversation, the man is shares traits of masculine style communication. He is trying to persuade Jig to having this operation for his happiness, claiming it’s for both. He makes promises that it will save their relationship, when in fact he wants her to have this operation for him. He controls her to the point she gives up, and gives in for his sake. While shes being controlled around, Jig is showing traits of feminine style communication. She is here to please the man. After listening to him basically beg for her to have the operation, she gives in softly and refuses to hear more from the man. She agrees to have the operation just for the sole purpose of his happiness, while she knows it wont fix

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