New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

by Jackson J Benson

  The qualification should be made that these gender-linked patterns are polarities, paradigms which are becoming less and less accurate as women attain positions of power and people become more sensitive to language patterns. Still, if such gender-marked traits in the dialogue are isolated and evaluated, first under the standards of the traditional male language patterns, then under the traditional female, four very different characters will emerge. Specific details from the story will make my hypothesis clearer.

  The first conflict between Jig and the American is over the hills which she lightly compares to white elephants. Several characteristics of gender-marked speech are obvious from this interchange. The first is the content of language approriate for each sex; the second is the implicit conversational objective of each.

  The man insists on the “facts” and “proof,” while Jig talks of fantasies, emotions, and impressions. Adelaide Haas writes: “[Men] frequently refer to time, space, quantity, destructive action, perceptual attributes, physical movement and objects. [Women] use more words implying feeling, evaluation, interpretation and psychological state” (616). Feminine language tends to be relationship-oriented while masculine is goal-oriented.

  Jig’s conversational objective is to establish intimacy through shared emotions and joke-telling. Tannen notes that intimacy for women is shared words, intimacy for men is shared actions (22). In this context Jig’s initial remark becomes an invitation to join in the intimacy of shared banter. The American’s reply, “I’ve never seen one,” effectively ends that conversational tactic.

  Humor is often described as a means of decreasing social distance. Cohesion is also a result in situations in which a witty remark is ostensibly directed against a target, but actually is intended to reaffirm the collectivity and the values held in common (Neitz, 215). Therefore, refusal to laugh at someone’s joke is a strong form of distancing and power (Neitz, 222).

  The American gives several very important gender-linked conversational clues. Shutting down Jig’s attempt at intimacy with terse phrases and insistence on facts reveals the American’s attempts to control the conversation and, by extension, the relationship. Since the topic itself is too innocuous for such negativity, the American must be rejecting Jig for some reason other than her quip about the hills like white elephants. At the end of round one Jig looks at the beaded curtain and changes the subject. Her response to his rejection is, to use Lakoff’s phrase, “classic female deference” (“Stylistic,” 67).

  All of the conclusions above evaluate the American through traditional female gender-linked language, however. If evaluated within a traditional male standard, speeches about hills like white elephants become irrelevant fluff and Jig’s lightness and humor inappropriate in the context of a train ride to the Barcelona abortion clinic. The American, feeling victimized by Jig’s pregnancy and mocked by her levity, insists on facts which protect him against her and reassert his control of his unstable world.

  The differences in these translations of the American and Jig are important. Jig’s superficiality and manipulativeness, for example, are judgmental labels linked to her language and contingent on an evaluation of her according to the foreign standard of a traditional male language. The American’s sincerity in his love of Jig or his emotional manipulation of her depends on whether his rejection of Jig’s attempts at intimacy is without justification or because of gender-linked presumptions. If the latter, then he makes a language, not a character, judgment which focuses and modifies his otherwise disproportionate cruelty.

  Jig attempts reconciliation with her next question about the advertisement on the beaded curtain. Because the American can speak and read Spanish and Jig cannot, translation of her world is one of many things for which she is dependent upon him—permission to try new drinks, an audience to laugh at her jokes, entertainment, support, love are others. Such dependence can have several possible effects. One is that the man is flattered; ever since she could pick up Seventeen, a woman has been told to interest and soothe the ego of a man by asking lots of questions and allowing him to parade his knowledge. Jig’s pattern of dependency on the American suggests that this tactic has proven successful before in their relationship. But this time, when Jig asks about the taste of Anis del Toro, the American answers politely but distantly, avoids even the most trivial personal disclosure—whether Anis del Toro tastes good with water—and follows Lakoff’s paradigm of masculine language, to tell “as little as possible about the speaker’s state of mind.”

  Another possible effect of dependence is that the man will sense entrapment and withdraw. At this awkward point in their relationship, Jig’s dependency is probably not one of her most endearing qualities. Her questions remind him of his responsibility for her—a point he would rather forget.

  Within the evaluative standard of traditional female speech patterns, the American’s lack of disclosure is emotional withholding; he is not playing according to the rules. Within the evaluative standards of traditional male speech patterns, it is not the American’s reaction, but Jig’s action, which is at fault. Jig’s dependence is smothering; because she is unable to make even the smallest decision on her own, the American’s terseness becomes a kindness, giving her vital information to enable her to make her own decisions.

  The conflict becomes more explicit in the next exchange, in which Jig voices her disappointment with the licorice taste of Anis del Toro and compares it to absinthe. Her reply, “like absinthe,” must be an allusion to some disappointment in their shared past, which, since absinthe is an aphrodisiac, Johnston suggests is sexual. “Now he wished to be rid of the unwanted by-product of that passion. He is not amused by such ironic references” (237). Whatever the allusion, her remark hits a nerve, and she presses her advantage:

  “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.”

  “All right. I was trying. I said the mountains look like white elephants. Wasn’t that bright?”

  “That was bright.”

  “I wanted to try this new drink. That’s all we do, isn’t it—look at things and try new drinks?”

  “I guess so.”

  Jig’s series of questions are strongly gender-marked. She uses a proportionately large number of tag-end questions: “wasn’t it?,” “isn’t it?” (Dietrich). She also uses circular and vaguely generalized evaluations of their activities rather than direct statements—“that’s all we do”—the goal of her conversation being consensus.

  Tag-end questions are words tacked on to the end of a statement which turn it into a question. Women’s language uses more tag-end questions than does men’s. The advantages of tag-end questions are that a speaker can invite contributions, avoid commitment, and effect consensus. The disadvantage is that the speaker seems to lack self-confidence and authority (Dietrich). Robin Lakoff writes “but the tag appears anyway as an apology for making an assertion at all . . . women do it more [than men] . . . hedges, like question intonation, give the impression that the speaker lacks authority or doesn’t know what he’s talking about” (Language, 54).

  Her use of vague generalizations and circular patterns is the opposite of the traditional male pattern of direct and objective statements. According to Lakoff, “a woman’s discourse is necessarily indirect, repetitious, meandering, unclear, exaggerated . . . while of course a man’s speech is clear, direct, precise and to the point” (Language, 23), because, as Scott states, these qualities “are effective ones for affiliative interactions in which warmth, co-operation, and self-expression are valued” (206). His discourse achieves goals, hers facilitates consensus and builds relationships.

  Evaluating Jig from the standard of women’s language, it is clear that she is trying to do just those things: to lead the American into an admission that he is committed to her and desires a fuller life than they now lead. Evaluating Jig from the standard of male language, she is indirect and coercive and therefore
superficial and manipulative.

  The American’s perfunctory replies are evasive. Since “to many women the relationship is working as long as they can talk things out,” the traditional female standard would evaluate the American’s weak replies as a warning sign of his insincerity (Tannen, 23), while the traditional male standard might see the evasion as discomfort with emotional disclosure since “men, on the other hand, expect to do things together and don’t feel anything is missing if they don’t have heart-to-heart talks all the time” (Tannen, 23).

  There is no conversational intimacy in the American’s echoes of her statements. Instead of effecting consensus, Jig’s questions increase the distance between them.

  If shared activities equal intimacy for a man, then Jig’s reduction of their life-style to “trying new drinks” is a rejection of the American. That he resists retaliation is, therefore, at worst a gesture of apathy, but at best a gesture of affection. His reticence, instead of the withholding evaluated from the standard of feminine language, might be the kindest way of being gentle with Jig without compromising his own integrity.

  His transition into the next conversational topic—that of the temperature of the beer—seems to support this softer view of the American. The American initiates small talk in which both he and Jig describe the beer, each remaining consistent in his or her use of gender-linked language. The American uses what Dietrich calls “neutral adjectives”—“nice and cool”; Jig uses an “empty adjective”—“lovely.” Empty adjectives, characteristic of feminine speech, are words like “pretty,” “adorable,” “precious.” Dietrich suggests women use these words to add impact linguistically they do not possess socially. Lakoff feels that their use dulls strong feeling and commitment (Language, 11).

  Their agreement on the beer is a momentary lull, a lead-in to direct conflict: the abortion.

  “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,” the man said. “It’s really not 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.”

  The girl did not say anything.

  “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.”

  With goal-oriented, objective, and precise language, the American distances the abortion by reducing it to an operation which lets the air in. If shared activity equals intimacy, then his offer to stay with Jig during the abortion is a gesture of love.

  Unfortunately this does not translate well into feminine language. Since the American’s facts do not fully describe Jig’s experience, the abortion being “not anything,” for example, she projects that neither could they fully describe his. Whether the distance between his language and his experience is due to self-deception, dishonesty, or cowardice hardly seems important. Both his reduction of the abortion to an operation and his offer to stay with Jig ignore the issue at the core of the conflict: emotional commitment and self-actualizing growth.

  Ignoring the issue of the simplicity of the operation, Jig follows his appeal with a series of questions which keep bringing him back to the core issues: their relationship and their attitudes toward life. She asks him directly for the emotional commitment for which she previously only hinted. Jig’s direct attack is uncharacteristic of feminine speech, and therefore very threatening (Lakoff, Language, 41).

  As the argument continues, Jig asks him whether he “wants” her to have the abortion; he translates his reply into what he “thinks,” thereby denying his emotions. Directly contradicting his desire for the abortion, he twice repeats that he does not want Jig to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Making several obviously impossible promises—to always be happy, to always love her, to never worry—he demonstrates flagrant bad faith. From the standard of male language these contradictions are the inevitable results of her unreasonable questions: abstract emotional responses to abstract emotional questions. From the standard of female language, they are inauthentic answers and betray trust. The differences stem from the genderlike premises that language does/does not deal with emotion and is/is not the basis of intimacy.

  Jig’s series of questions exposes both the American’s and Jig’s conversational double binds. The double bind, as described by Bateson, is a conversation with two objectives. To be true to one conversational objective a speaker must be untrue to another (208).

  Jig’s direct insistence on the American’s emotional commitment forces him into a double bind. The American has two conversational objectives. The first, as Tannen phrases it, is to “maintain camaraderie, avoid imposing and give (or at least appear to give) the other person some choice in the matter” (22). For this reason he repeats six times within the forty-minute conversation: “I don’t want you to [do anything you don’t want to].” The American’s other objective is the abortion. Unfortunately it is impossible to maintain easy camaraderie while insisting on the abortion. Instead of choosing one or the other, he chooses both and ignores the contradiction. While a traditional masculine standard of language might recognize the sincerity of the American’s concern for Jig, the traditional feminine standard translates his contradiction as hypocrisy.

  Jig is also caught in a double bind. She wants both the American and the baby. Her series of questions establishes that she can accomplish at least one of her objectives, so she releases the other with her self-sacrificing statement “I don’t care about me.” While Jig may be totally sincere, not caring about herself and having only the American’s interests at heart, such total devotion is highly unlikely; it is more likely that she is well-taught in the skills of social deference. But in this situation, where the American’s interests equal lack of growth, eternal adolescence, and sterility, her deference is self-destructive.

  Of course, the unnaturalness of Jig’s self-sacrifice and the artifice of her insincerity leave her vulnerable to the stereotype of “women as fickle, distrustworthy, and illogical” (Lakoff, “Stylistic,” 71). Judged by traditional male language patterns, Jig is capricious and manipulative. Judged by traditional female language patterns, particularly within the context of the double bind, the progression of Jig’s conversation is logical and inevitable.

  The American’s reaction to Jig’s acquiescence is immediate emotional withdrawal and disavowal of responsibility for her decision or for her problem. His distance contradicts all of the protestations of love he made minutes before. It also contains a thinly veiled threat of permanent withdrawal. His knee-jerk response shows that his desire for noninvolvement and nonresponsibility is much stronger than his desire to maintain a relationship with Jig. Of course, objectively, the abortion is Jig’s problem: it is her body, and the American has no right to interfere. However, the objective facts do not take into account the emotional dimension of their shared reality: the body is hers; the relationship and baby is theirs.

  Even though Jig agrees to the abortion, it is obvious that she is not emotionally reconciled to it. She moves away from the table and him and, while staring at the fertile valley, continues the argument. Unwilling to give up her dream, she finds it impossible to believe he has deliberately chosen stagnation, sterility, and death. The American goes into shell-shock in this segment of the conflict. While she reveals her most intimate desires, he seems to be scarcely listening.

  “And we could have all this,” she said [gesturing to the landscape]. “And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.” In traditional feminine language patterns, the goal of social facilitation leads to emphasis on politeness which, in turn, tends toward metaphors and indirect sentence patterns. Consistent with her gender-linked language, Jig speaks of the baby metaphorically, in terms of the land. This, Jig’s most powerful argument, links the American’s fertility to the obviously symbolic landscape. As Mary Dell Fletcher writes: “The life-giving landscape (“everything”) is now associated in Jig’s mind wit
h . . . a fruitful life where natural relations culminate in new life and spiritual fulfillment, not barrenness and sterility, as represented by the dry hills” (17).

  The possibility of change and self-actualization, the fertility of the land, and the continuation of life affirmed through Jig’s pregnancy are evidence that sterility and stagnation are the American’s choice, not his fate. As she stands next to the tracks, the crossroad of their choice, Jig turns her back on the sterile, burnt hills and the American and looks out onto the fertile fields. He calls her back into the shadows with him where there is both the anesthesia and sterility of his choice: “‘Come on back in the shade,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t feel that way.’”

  The American distances himself further by paying so little attention to Jig’s words that he must ask her to repeat herself. Assuming the truth of Tannen’s argument that for a woman intimacy is shared emotion and conversation, the American’s “what did you say?” sets him apart from and above her (22). Because she bases her argument on a series of factors which he does not recognize as being important or true, the more she reveals her deepest desires, the more he denies her reality and retreats from her. Feminist theorists argue that since women derive their language from a standard which is men’s, women’s language is inadequate to express her experiential world. Jig’s stuttering and vague description of the world she sees slipping away from her seems to illustrate this inadequacy; her slippery language describing “forces” must frustrate his literal mindset which does not deal in such intangibles and insists on facts. The more she tries to establish intimacy, the less the concord between them. As Tannen observes, the more problems she exposes, the more incompetent and neurotic she knows she must appear in his eyes: the more they both see her as problem-ridden (22). They end this section of the conflict with this exchange: