Gwen Hardwood The emotive qualities of Gwen Harwood’s poetry resonate with her readers. She uses her own memories to illustrate love for her family, her loss of innocence and the swiftness of time passing. She demonstrates this in her poems Father and Child, The Violets and At Mornington. The poem The Violets opens with the line “It is dusk and cold,” the time of day symbolising that this persona has reached old age and is metaphorically drawing closer to nightfall or the end of her days. Death is made apparent with the negative adjective “cold.” The flowers she is picking at the beginning of this poem are clearly what stimulate her memory of childhood as they are referenced later in the poem.
The second symbol encountered in this passage are the hills. The girl claims that the hills look like white elephants. In years gone by, white elephants were symbolic of a great but burdensome gift. This could potentially be linked to the pregnancy and the child itself. It almosts seems as though she already realizes the great burden that the child could place upon her and her partner.
202) foreshadow the approaching conflict between the narrator and Peter, her professor. The rain that ruins the narrator and her ex-lovers trip can symbolize the loss of love between the two; however, the rain can also symbolize the purification of oneself. The narrator believes she is with her professor because of the inordinate affection she feels towards him, but the presence of the attractive waiter at the restaurant helps her realize that she is merely confusing “academic ambition with love” (Weldon pg. 206). The places the narrator goes to with her lover help add to the gloomy tone of the story.
It is clear acting ‘prim and proper’ and trying to make Mitch want her with her acting and roleplaying was taking its toll on her. At the beginning of the play Williams describes her ‘stopping lifelessly at the steps’ after their date, asking him how he’s going to get home and laughing ‘grimly’ at his replies. Mitch, too, seems in a similar mood, yet his dejection seems to stem more from his inability to give Blanche any ‘entertainment’. No doubt through their date he would have found that he and Blanche do not share anything in common. We, from the first few minutes of the scene, can see that their relationship is forced.
When Jig notices that the hills “look like white elephants,” she mentions it to the American, therefore starting the conversation with him. Also, Jig notices that the beaded curtain has something written on it, and brings up a conversation about what it said. By bringing up the topics of conversation, Jig is showing that she is assertive and aggressive. It’s also obvious that Jig has the power in the relationship because she doesn’t give in to the pressure from the American to believe that the abortion is simple. Later in the story, the American attempts to give Jig reason to not be afraid by saying, “I’ve known lots of people that have done it” (4).
Andrew Rawlins Mrs. Bonham English 12 ACP 12 October 2012 Too Much Princess In both The Princess Paradox by James Poniewozik and Cinderella and Princess Culture by Peggy Orenstein the authors suggest that there is an over exposure of princess themes to young children and that they have many different effects. Poniewozik offers evidence from Hollywood and different movies that have been released with an underlying princess theme to them. Then, Orenstein takes the approach from the social aspect stating that young girls are thought of being “princesses.” Although both of these authors have the same underlying claim, their approaches are very diverse and one author is much more effective in supporting their claim than the other author. Poniewozik,
Hills Like White Elephants In Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants”, the story illustrates a young woman named Jig and an American man challenged with the decision of abortion. Throughout the sequence of the story it is apparent that the man is persuading Jig to undergo the procedure. The apprehensive discussion the two are having suggests that they are avoiding the underlying issue at hand. In addition, the setting of the story establishes the stigma involved with the procedure, as Jig left her town and traveled to Spain. Hemingway’s use of symbolism in the dialogue and setting helps reveal the difficult matter through suggestion without the actual term abortion being mentioned.
There are many different points throughout this story where the girl continues to second guess the operation. In the beginning of the story, the girl talks about how the hills off in the distance look like white elephants although the country is brown and dry. At this point, the girl is referring to the “white elephants” as her baby, which the man wants her to abort. Later in the story, the girl states that maybe the hills don’t look like elephants anymore, which simply symbolizes that she is thinking about not having the abortion. The white elephants are a major symbol in this story, symbolizing something that is unwanted.
Given these choices, the girls bring forth a sense of independency. In his article, Poniewozik declares that at the end of The Prince & Me, Paige secures both her dream job and her prince. This shows Hollywood’s subliminal manipulation to brainwash feminists by offering Hollywood princesses a chance to change their own destinies, but not completely throw out the pedestrian ‘girly’ details that make these films fairy-tales. As cited by Poniewozik in his article, “You can have the girly dream of glass slippers and true love… as well as the womanly ideal of self-determination and independence…”. Poniewozik then continues to explicate the fact that there are a new set of ideals Hollywood princesses must follow to please both fantasy and feminism.
Symbolism in “Hills Like White Elephants” “Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway is a short story about an American man and a girl named Jig who are confronted with a difficult issue of whether or not terminate a pregnancy. The main tension within this story is that Jig sees the possibility of keeping her child and having a happy life, while the man fails to see the positive possibilities and works to persuade her to go through with the abortion. Hemingway uses symbolism through alcohol, the hills, the white elephants, and the train station to develop the theme of the story. Hemingway’s writing style in this story is well crafted. His simple style and taut dialogue pull readers into the story, and he shares just enough about the couple to keep the readers interested.