The Role Of A Motherly Figure In Jamaica Kincaid's Hills Like White Elephants

Has someone ever given you their opinion on something that made you second guess or change your initial thoughts and feelings? When someone has an opinion from a different perspective and has valid reasons you could not believe in your initial thoughts. Their opinion on a certain topic could be the complete opposite of yours, which in the end you could be fully persuaded onto the other side of the argument. Also, by doing simple research on a topic could influence you to change your thoughts because you are becoming more educated on a topic that interested you. Finding out new perspectives and different ideas on a concept could force you to form a new unique opinion. In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills like White Elephants” and Kincaid’s
Jamaica Kincaid creates a motherly figure in her short story that is telling a younger girl how to act to be socially accepted in the Caribbean Islands. One point of advice that the motherly figure gives to the girl is “This is how you grow okra- far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants” (Kincaid 171). In America we do not have okra trees therefore we do not have to worry about red ants. On the other hand, in the Caribbean Islands they do and younger girls should know were to grow okra trees on the island. By the motherly figure giving this advice she is influencing how the younger girl should grow up. Also, the motherly figure gives the girl advice on how to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. Kincaid writes “This is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” (171). Bailey Carol writes that “Younger, unmarried women are usually those who seek abortions more frequently, and so this instruction about “how to throw away a child” may be a tacit permission to be other than “chaste” in her private life.” Giving the advice to a younger child influences them to think before they act. The motherly figure telling the girl about how to make medicine on how to “throw away a child” also influences the girl to think of the consequences after the
Simple quotes can have such an impact on how a story ends. For example, in “Hills like White Elephants” when the girl tells the man that she does not care about herself, he replies that he cares about her. If the man said he did not care for her then the outcome of the story could have ended up with the girl leaving the man at the train station. In society everyday we currently change our opinions without realizing. We see and experience new occurrences and tasks which influence us to act in different ways, most of the time we do it without realizing how much we actually change our minds. People that are around us daily also have an influence on who we are as a person and our thoughts on concepts that we may have never thought about before. For example, professor’s parents, and co- workers can all have an influence in your life. In the work place tasks may come up that co- workers do not handle well due to stress. That could influence you to act in the same way or just create more work for you in the future. Professor’s are always influencing you to think about new topics depending on the subject they specialize in. Being an business major professors are always trying to influence you into a more distinct business field, such as accounting or marketing. Parents have always influenced your life since you