No matter what era we are in, we can’t deny the fact that there are some fundamental similarities and differences between a woman and a girl. With that being said, the authors were successfully showing how both Katherine Ames and Jig faced their partners’ selfishness, and how the two female protagonist were different in making decision based on their man. Although Katherine Ames and Jig had different characteristics, they both failed to communicate with the male protagonists efficiently.
As well as Katherine Ames, Jig also had to handle her boyfriend’s selfishness. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the American appeared to control most of Jig’s decisions in order to sustain their current joyfulness. He wanted to enjoy his entire ride with her that he was willing to sacrifice a human life, his own child. When Jig mentioned the “white elephant” which is their unborn child, he irritatedly said, “That’s the only thing that bothers us. I don’t want anybody but you. I don’t want anyone else. And I know it’s perfectly simple” (478). It seems to me that having his girlfriend to be suffered under such an operation was not as important as his own happiness. Similarly, Katherine Ames would always be absent from her husband because “he was a man of other things, a dreamer,” “At times he lay still for hours, at …show more content…
At first, she was a perfect housewife, but she learned how to break free from her loveless marriage and to risk herself by taking the plumber’s hand without knowing what will happen after that. She was shaken by the fact that the plumber was as pratical as she was, and had a soul of earth as hers, that she “stood up, fixed a pin in her hair, and turned around towards the kitchen,” and strongly demanded the maid, “When Mrs. Ames gets up, please tell him I’ve gone down” (17). Katherined was determined to go along with her own choice to satisfy her wants, rather than depending on a man like Jig