Contrary to what most may believe, the feminist movement present in today’s society is not a new concept. These types of outspoken and driven woman have been around for over a century, looking for ways to make the world a more equal place for men and women. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was one of the first texts to ever blatantly call out society for its oppression of women. Gilman’s work led other authors to write in a more feminist tone, one of whom was Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” was written about 30 years after “The Yellow Wallpaper” but there is little difference in the relationships between men and women, showing that changing the oppressive and degrading thoughts of society about women was difficult and took a lot of time. In fact, women are still fighting for rights today, but it has been much easier due to the early feminist movement that became because of texts like these two. Hemingway and Gilman portray their female characters in a way that ensures they will have readers’ sympathy, leading to more people speaking out against the unjust societal norms of women during this time period. 

Looking at the way both authors address the women within their stories is a big part of what makes these two stories important. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman gives us the entire story through the narration of the woman within the story. She is one of two main characters, the other being her husband John, yet throughout the entire text, readers never once learn what her name is. Readers learn all about John and how he is a “physician of high standing”, but the woman’s name is never given to us (Gilman 300). This depiction of telling an entire story about a woman and using her inner thoughts, but never telling readers her name, creates the feeling that the woman is not important or seen as someone worth caring about (Ford, 310). This is interesting because the entire plot of this story is depicting her life with her illness. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, while readers do eventually learn that the name of the woman in the text is Jig, Hemingway writes about her presence is if she is just there to sit pretty and is of no substance to the story. When introducing the characters, she is very passively referred to by Hemingway as “the American and the girl with him” (Hemingway 1). It is interesting that Hemingway only refers to Jig as “the girl”, but notes how the man is American, depicting him as a smart, western man, because this is ultimately a feminist text. Linda M. Wagner wrote an article about the way Hemingway writes about women in his early fiction. In it she says that although Hemingway may “passively write about the girl, his sympathies lie with her in this text” (Wagner 240). The way he writes about the conversation between the American man and Jig shows that he genuinely feels sorry for her and the way the American is so blatantly pushing her. Both authors of these texts depict a society in which men are seen as of more importance, eventually leading to the rise of the feminist movement throughout the United States and the world.

Throughout both texts, the men are in full control over the actions of the female characters, exemplifying that throughout this time of history women were looked at as incapable of validly making their own decisions. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, the American man is pushing Jig to have an unnamed operation, assumed to be an abortion, throughout their conversation.  When Jig is talking about how the beer is “lovely”, he redirects the conversation towards this topic by interrupting with “I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig, It’s not really an operation at all.” (Hemingway, 476). He goes on to speak of an abortion as “just letting the air in” and “perfectly natural”, pushing Jig to get the operation more and more as the conversation continues (Hemingway, 476). The way he so passively refers to this operation as something Jig wouldn’t mind shows how he does not care, or really know, about the implications and invasive processes that are involved when getting an abortion. Margaret D. Bauer writes about the man being unconcerned saying, “The woman perceives the seriousness of the “choice” the man wishes her to make, while the man is oblivious to its magnitude”, showing how Hemingway writes the man as infringing on Jig’s decision (Bauer 130). Not only does he not fully understand the process that he is advocating for, he continually brings it up to Jig during the conversation and pushes for it over and over again. Jig asks if they can “maybe stop talking”, and while the American man is quiet for a brief moment, he immediately brings the topic back up saying “I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to”, referring to Jig’s willingness to go through with the operation (Hemingway 477). It is easy to see that Hemingway depicts the man as someone who does not care very heavily about the woman or her say in this decision, which was the norm during this time period. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the woman’s entire life is being decided for her by her husband. John makes the decision to go to the house for the summer, and when the woman wanted to stay in a room with “only one window and not room for two beds”, John said no and the decision was final (Gilman 1). The woman was then forced to stay in the room her husband picked, with a wallpaper which the woman said was the “worst paper she’d seen” in her life (Gilman 1). This blatant ignoring of the woman’s wishes shows the oppressive state that men treated women with during this time period. On top of deciding where she would be staying, John also had complete control over the woman’s every action. The woman is “absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again” by John, and he “hardly lets her stir without special direction” (Gilman 2). The way Gilman writes these characters’ relationship as a man very clearly making the decisions for the woman shows how she is drawing attention to the unequal treatment of men and women during this time, especially within marriages. In an article written by Julie Bates Dock, she explains the eruption of feminist works that came from this time period, including “The Yellow Wallpaper”. She states that other scholars along with Gilman were “challenging what they perceived to be a patriarchal literary canon”, showing that Gilman was a part of the beginnings of the feminist movement and advocated for this through her writings (Dock 1). She goes on to say that these authors were “deconstructing dominant male patterns of thought”, which is very clearly shown in the way that Gilman so blatantly depicts the woman as being controlled over her husband John (Dock 1). The way both Gilman and Hemingway write the male characters in their texts as dominant shows how both authors were trying to bring this inequality to light, and wanted to promote the growth of feminism. 

Ernest Hemingway and Charlotte Perkins Gilman should both be considered leaders of the feminist movement in literature for the way they write “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Hills Like White Elephants”. In each text, the sexist roles that were in place during the time period in which they were written are so dramatically called to attention and they made people stop and think about the way women were being treated. These two authors allowed the people of this time period to realize the misogynistic society they were living in, and begin to fight for equality of the sexes, eventually leading to the rise of the feminist movement that is still present today.
