Jig in Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants

Women have stepped out of traditional roles of the housewife, the mother and the submissive doormat to more assertive natures. Many controversial issues surround women’s crusade of freedoms including the widely debated right to choose what she does to her body, referring to an abortion. 1n 1927 Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story titled, “Hills Like White Elephants” that expressed a feminist movement focusing around this issue. Born in 1899 in Illinois, Hemingway prematurely ended his own life in 1961, seven years after winning a Nobel Prize for literature. Despite being recognized as one of the most influential writers of his time, Hemingway also received the popular reputation for being a notorious “woman hater”. Through his rocky relationships with his four wives, his publicly known loathing of his mother, whom he had referred to as the “all-time, All-American Bitch”— he was however, “sensitive to the plight of women” expressed in stories such as “Up in Michigan”, “Out of Season” and In Our Time. Through the character’s development and ability to come to her own decision despite her boyfriend’s constant pressure suggests a powerful feminist theme in a society dominated by men. First of all, the plot of the story shows that the man has more control and authority than the woman. Since he is the protagonist, he takes up more space in the story. He has more influence because he is the main character and because the story is based on what he wants. His goal is to convince Jig to get aborted; so once again, he is more important since he wants something in particular. On the contrary, Jig is the antagonist because she is opposed to the idea of getting an abortion. She wants to keep her child, but her husband is insisting so much that she can not transmit her opinion and express how she feels. To me the plot of Hills Like White Elephants clearly demonstrates the power of men over women. Secondly, the man has more power than his wife because the characterization