"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway and "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner both center around two women who are repressed by their life circumstances. However, outside of their feelings, their situations could not be more different. Miss Emily Grierson (A Rose for Emily) is trapped in a life of solitude, despondency, and desperation. The girl, or "Jig" (Hills Like White Elephants), is equally as desperate, but her repression is not born of loneliness or restraint it is the child of her freedom. Repression comes in several forms, but it will suffocate and consume you.
In "A Rose for Emily", Miss Emily Grierson lives a life of quiet turmoil. Her life has revolved around an inexplicable loneliness mostly characterized by the harsh abandonment of death. The most vital imagery utilized by Faulkner demonstrates Miss Emily's mental state. She, being self-imprisoned within the confines of her home, is the human embodiment of her house; Faulkner describes it as "stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps an eyesore among eyesores." (Faulkner 308). Miss Emily is also decaying, but it is subtle and internal the awful smell that begins to permeate from her dwelling is a reflection of the withering woman within rotting."Hills like White Elephants" by Ernest and William's "A Rose for Emily" center around two women who are repressed by their lives' circumstances. However, outside of their feelings, their situations could not be more different. Miss Emily Grierson is trapped in a life of solitude, despondency, and desperation. The girl, or "Jig", is equally as desperate, but her repression is not born of loneliness or restraint it is the child of her freedom. Repression comes in several forms, but it will suffocate and consume you.
In "A Rose for Emily", Miss Emily Grierson lives a life of quiet turmoil. Her life has revolved around an inexplicable loneliness mostly characterized by the harsh ab...