Woman Hollering Creek Compare And Contrast Essay

Disillusion is defined as “the condition of being dissatisfied or defeated in expectation or hope” especially in the case of love (“Disillusion”). This is the case for the two protagonists in the written works “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. The two short stories share a similar theme of the protagonists’ suffering from disillusions, their resolutions are extremely different due to the epiphanies.

In the short story “Woman Hollering Creek” the conflict of the story is between the main characters Cleofilas, the protagonist, and Juan, the antagonist who are married. The conflict stems from Cleofilas’ perception of how a wife should be treated versus Juan’s idea of how to treat

a wife. The protagonist of the story grew up watching telenovelas and believed that a marriage should be full of passion and that one must do anything to find and keep the love of one’s life, because of this she thought a wife should be treated with love and care (Cisneros 220). However, her husband was the exact opposite of the man Cleofilas’ read and watched on television. Instead, he was continually unfaithful and physically abusive to Cleofilas and unwilling to change no matter how much he apologized after the incidents, causing conflict in the story.
Similarly the two characters in “Hills like White Elephants” have a conflict over what they want in the future. The protagonist of the story is also a woman, who goes by the nickname Jig, and the antagonist is the man she is in a relationship with. The conflict in this story arises over Jig wanting to potentially keep the baby she is pregnant with and settle down versus the man who wants to get rid of the baby and have a life full of travel and debauchery. In comparison to the first story, the conflicts are similar in the way that the writers have a man and woman in a relationship as their main characters.
The two stories development of the theme of disillusionment unravels in two varying ways. The theme of disillusionment develops in “Woman Hollering Creek” by the complication of the story, Juan’s physical abuse towards Cleofilas. Cleofilas is suffering from disillusionment about what her marriage is like, “the first time she had been so surprised she didn’t cry out or try to defend herself. She had always said she would strike back” and grows more disappointed as her husband continually maims her physically and grows distant (Cisneros 222). Additionally, the narrative point of view the author uses to tell the plot structure of the story highlights the progression of disillusionment Cleofilas feels about her abusive relationship with the antagonist as they have children.
Correspondingly, the protagonist in “Hills Like White Elephants” is feeling disillusionment over her relationship’s potential future.

The main characters’ conflict over not wanting the same things in life is the root of the women’s disillusionment. The theme is furthered by the complication of the antagonist manipulation of the Jig’s feelings for him. Similar to Cisneros’s written work, Hemingway uses the narrative point of view to illuminate the growing disillusionment the women feels about not being able to have everything if she terminates the pregnancy. Hemingway leads the audience to this conclusion when the protagonist states “no, we can’t it isn’t ours anymore… Once they take it away, you never get it back” when referring to her disappointment that the antagonist will not change his mind and they can no longer have everything they ever wanted

(402).
The epiphany that Cleofilas has about her and Juan’s relationship comes after a dramatic crisis and climax.

Cleofilas’ disillusion is at an all time high during the crisis, when she needs to go to the doctor’s office for a pregnancy check up, yet she is too afraid to ask because they cannot afford it, she is scared of being physically accosted by her husband, and she does not know how to explain her bruises to the doctor. The climax then arises and Cleofilas, with the help of the doctor’s assistant and her friend, give her the opportunity to leave her husband. Cleofilas’ comes to the epiphany that her and her children do not deserve to be treated like this and her husband is not in love with her. The epiphany leads Cleofilas to the resolution to leave her husband and to no longer live with constant disillusion over her

marriage.
Similar to Cleofilas, Jig is also leads to an epiphany due to the crisis and climax of the story. The crisis occurs when the protagonist finally realizes that they cannot have it all and they have to choose between the family life style she wants and the life of traveling and drinking the man wants to continue. The climax comes when in the conversation the women begs her significant other “would you please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking,” after she has the epiphany, that she will not prevail over the antagonist’s manipulation, the complication of the story (Hemingway 402). The resolution of this story comes when the couple stops talking and the train arrives causing them to leave the bar.
The two epiphanies and resolutions of these short stories could not be any more of a contrast. While Cleofilas came to the epiphany to end her conflict by choosing the life she knows she deserves and leaving a life of disillusionment by boarding a bus to a new life as her resolution. Jig comes to the epiphany that she cannot have the baby and her story is resolved by her remaining in the relationship and choosing to say in disillusionment by putting the antagonist’s wants over her own. However, the stories are similar in the way the authors used the narrative’s perspective to illuminate their shared theme of disillusionment in the protagonists’ lives.