“Sweat” and “Hills Like White Elephants” are stories about women who are entirely different from each other. Although they have complicated relationships with their husbands, both girls find the strength to survive. This paper aims to describe why Delia and Jig are dynamic characters and name the circumstances that create conflict for Delia ad Jig.
Both women have a dynamic character, even though they are both feminine and gentle. Jig first patiently listens to her husband’s statements that abortion is not a big thing. But then the reader notices that Jig can object to her husband. Jig uses sarcasm quite cleverly to present to him how cold and cruel he is to her (Hemingway 10). Delia, too, at first does not show resistance to her abusive husband Sykes, but one day she tells him that she will not tolerate him anymore in her house.
The main circumstance that antagonizes Jig is the addiction of the American to an idle lifestyle. An expression of this idleness is his love of absinthe, as evidenced by the thrill with which the American speaks about the drink (Hemingway 11). At the end of the story, he goes to a bar to drink a glass of Anis Del Toro before he and Jig board the train to Madrid.
As for Delia, her husband Sykes tries to turn her life into a nightmare, self-asserting at the expense of his wife. One day he brings a snake into the house, which is an expression of his hatred for Delia (Hurston 28). However, by coincidence, the snake attacks Sykes, and he dies from her bite. Delia, frightened by the cries of her husband, realizes that the doctors will not have enough time to save him (Hurston 33). Another thing complicating Delia’s life is hard work, symbolized by a huge basket of dirty laundry, which she has to wash for weeks on end, as if she is a washer.
Thus, it was described why Delia and Jig are dynamic characters, and the circumstances that create conflict for Delia and Jig were named. They are ready to confront their husbands, and it proves that their characters are dynamic. At the same time, values hostile to Jig are symbolized with Anis Del Toro, and objects that complicate the life of Delia are a snake and piles of dirty linen.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills like white elephants.” Men without women (1927).
Hurston, Zora Neale. Sweat. Rutgers University Press, 1997.