In order to explain how Ernest Hemingway portrays Luz in comparison with Jig, I analyze his two stories "A Very Short Story" and "Hills Like White Elephants" respectively.
Luz is a World War I nurse who falls in love with a soldier while she tends him over the course of three months in a hospital. She agrees to marry him, but after the soldier returns home to the America, Luz writes a letter to him saying that she has fallen in love with an officer and that she will marry him the next summer. She also describes the love of the soldier and her self as a love of “a boy and a girl”. We can see that Luz is in power letting the soldier down. Later, she writes to the soldier that the officer did not marry her after all, but now the soldier ignores her. In this manner, she first was in power over the soldier, but eventually he dumped her. I believe Hemingway wants to convey to the reader that playing with a man’s love can be costly. In my opinion, Hemingway portrays Luz a simple and a bit loose and relentless to her soldier-boyfriend, and hence, she gets more attention from the soldier than she deserved.
On the other hand, creating the character Jig, I believe Hemingway wants to convey to the reader that women not always get the attention and the respect they deserve in a relationship with men and the complexity of a woman’s mind. Jig is in a relationship with an egocentric man; who does not understand her need for love, respect, and attention. This may reflect that the author wants to convey to the reader that women may be important in men’s lives, but that men tend not to give them the attention and respect they deserve. This can bear resemblance to the more recent James Brown and Betty Jean Newsome’s well known song “This is a man’s world” claiming that “This is a man’s world, but it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl (Wikipedia 2011a).” An example of this maltreatment is when the American man in “Hills Like White Elephants”, ignores the fact that people have died from abortion surgeries and oversimplifying it by telling the girl “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”, in order to get his will. He cunningly tries to manipulate the girl to undertake an abortion six times before the girl vehemently responds, “Would you please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking?” She says “Please” seven times, which is one time more than the man has tried to convince her to have an abortion. This may illustrate that Hemingway wants the reader to realize that the girl is capable and willing to decide for herself what to do with the fetus. Relentlessly, the man continues by saying “But I don’t want you to” and “I don’t care anything about it”, which illustrates that he neither listen to, nor respect the girl.
Hemingway portrays Jig as being dependent of and dominated by her man. One example of this dependence is; despite the fact that the Jig and the American man in the “Hills Like White Elephants” have been traveling a lot, she does not understand the Spanish-speaking woman, and therefore has to ask the American “What did she say?” In contrast, Luz wanted to stay in Spain and was economically and socially independent of the soldier setting up a new hospital.
Hemingway portrays Jig as the protagonist and as a round character that develops during the story, while Luz is flat and the antagonist in “A very short story”. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, Jig develops from being the girl who asks the man all the questions to becoming the girl who provides the man with all the answers. In contrast, Luz is eventually turned down by her former love, the soldier.
To summarize, in “Hills Like White Elephants”, Jig is empowering her self standing up for her rights while Luz looses her power as she is turned down of both the officer and the soldier.
References:
Hemingway, Ernest. “A Very Short Story”. Handed out in class.
Rock, Claudia and Suneeti Phadke. 2007. Style and substance, 2nd edition, ÉDITIONS DU RENOUVEAU PÉDAGOGIQUE INC., Canada.
Wikipedia.2011. Available from URL:
Hi Henriette,
ReplyDeletewow, you have really much to say! It's interesting to read, how different your work and some ideas are from mine.
I very much enjoyed this, Henriette! I agree with much (though perhaps not all) of your analysis, and in any case it is all appropriate, reasonable, and thought-provoking! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI would like to quibble just a little bit about Luz. I think she is a round character because I see her as developing through her relationship with the major and the letter she wrote to Chicago about it, but I agree that she is the antagonist of the story she is in.
Thank you so much for your feedback. After reading your response, I agree with you on the point that Luz maybe is a round character after all.
ReplyDeleteHave a nice evening.
Henriette