Feminism

Sarah Elgohary                             Elizabeth Wheeler          

English 102                                2/11/12

Thomas Jefferson once wrote “All men are created equal.”Why only men? Why did he not write that all men and women are created equal? We are all the same:  we are all human beings. This is the 21 century women are now allowed to serve in the military. Women can have the same jobs and roles in society as men do .So why is it that women suffrage was not passed in the U.S until the 1920s? Women are not inferior to men just because they raise and nurture children. Women have other roles in society besides raising and nurturing children. Child care is not the only role of women in today’s society. Men are not superior to women just because of their roles in society and their sexual attributes. Updike’s and Hemingway’s and Jhumpa Lahiri  readers come away from their stories with the effect that the lead male characters are male chauvinists, prejudiced in their  devotion to the mistaken belief that men are superior. In addition, the theme of male of chauvinism is emphasized in all three short stories because in all three stories men characters always want to be in control especially in their romantic relationships.

 In John Updike’s “A & P”, three girls shop in the local “A & P “and are described from head to toe by the narrator the  nineteen year old cashier, Sammy. Sammy is immature teenage who is actively expressing his sexual desires for the girls. He has no regards for the consequences of actions because he has not yet mentally reached the consciousness of what it means to become an adult with responsibilities.  

Sammy’s description of the girls is very detailed and judgmental; it is almost as if he only sees the girls as objects to play with for his only amusement, not as human beings. He starts the description of the girls with the one he does not even say the girl that “caught my eye first he say the one this line emphasizes Sammy’s immature desire for girls that he cannot control or have for himself.”The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs . . . there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose . . . and a tall one, with black hair that hadn’t quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long . . . and then the third one, that wasn’t quite so tall. She was the queen . . . She didn’t look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima-donna legs . . . She had on a kind of dirty pink – beige maybe, I don’t know – bathing suit with a little nibble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down . . . all around the top of the cloth there was this shining rim . . 

Through Updike’s descriptions and dialogue, in “A & P” he has made the male characters come across as the stereotypical male pigs. After Lengel, the manager, informs the girls that “this isn’t the beach”, Sammy immediately blurts out, “I quit.” “The girls, and who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out, so I say ‘I quit,’ to Lengel quick enough for them to hear, hoping they’ll stop and watch me, their( unsuspected hero”). Sammy believes that because he is male, and the girls are the typical females who will be flattered be him saving them, .quitting is the right thing to do in the situation. Despite his thinking, however, his actions simply come across to the reader as something that is done because he is a male and believes that he will get somewhere with the girls if he sticks up and defends them by quitting his job. He wants the girls to see him as a superior man for quitting his job to protect their honor.  He wanted to be in control situation of the so that he can get in a relationship with one of the girls, but instead he got reality .In fact, none of the girls even noticed his “heroic action “because he anticipated the girls to be waiting outside for him, but there is no one outside.  

Another male character that comes across to the reader as someone that is a self-absorbed sexist is the American in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants.” “Hemingway favors a more simplistic approach to convey his view of women, portraying obvious empathy for his female characters, while his male characters and protagonists appear to be more self absorbed” just like Sammy Hemingway portrays Jig as a girl that does not think for herself, and is doing everything that the American tells her to do. 

When the readers first meet Jig and the American, they are having a conversation about whether or not she will go through with an abortion. The American shows little, if any, empathy towards the girl, whom he says he “would do anything for.” He, in fact, belittles the process, and “attempts to minimize its pain and inconvenience for the woman.” Hemingway shows this through dialogue that is exchanged through the two. 

“‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.’

‘Oh, cut it out.’

‘You started it,’ the girl said. ‘I was being amused. I was having a fine time.’

‘Well, let’s try and have a fine time.’ . . .

‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all.’

The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.

‘I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.’

‘I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural. “

 “Hell Heaven” by Jhumpa   Lahiri  is about a woman who is reminiscing about her past life.  She realizes her mother is not love in with her father. The mother is in love with the uncle who really a  family friend who has unrequited love for her Prefab Kaka he is marring his girlfriend Deborah in “ Hell Heaven” Jumpa  Lahiri  show the theme  in “A & P” by John Updike and “Hills Like White Elephants”  but is different from them because the main characters are female.   The mother is the protagonist in the story. She is better than Prenab Kaku who she loved because she stayed with her family to be a good mother even though she was never happy with anybody but him and never adjusted to life in America being born in India. The mother is truly so miserable and lonely without the Prenab Kaku in her life that she almost goes back to India the line “He brought to my mother the first and I suspect the only happiness she ever felt. “ “I don’t even think my birth made her as happy.” This line proves how sad the mother is without Prenab Kaku in her life especially in marriage she was not even happy when her own daughter was born .The mother sadness is intense that the reader feels sympathy for her especially in the line ‘My mother only got to touch him during the wedding when she was giving him away to Deborah. “The reader feels the same sympathy for Jig who obviously wants to her keep baby but goes through with the abortion to make the American happy. Prenab Kaku is just  like Sammy from “A&P”, he is carefree with no responsibilities happy with life in America, leaving the symbolic mother behind as if she were an inferior distant memory of his past life.

John Updike, Ernest Hemingway and Jhumpa Lahiri   represent the lead male characters that are chauvinists, Updike Hemingway’s and Jhumpa Lahiri readers come away from their stories with the effect that the lead male characters are chauvinistic, “prejudiced in their devotion to the mistaken belief that Men are superior. Updike Hemingway’s and Jumpa Lahiri are all pointing out the problem encountered by male chauvinists.  In all three stories the male characters are victims of male chauvinism. F