Love, Communication, Priorities of Men and Women, Femininity and Women’s Sexuality

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Short Stories Analysis
The relationship between a man and a woman has been known to define ‘love’ and has dominated the tenets and values of a family in many societies globally, throughout the ages. Nonetheless, men have always dominated over women, but emerging resistance and struggles against patriarchy are slowly changing the scene and redefining the position of women in society, and giving new meaning to love. Raymond Craver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a story that explicitly attempts to define love and what love entails, although the numerous attempts by the story’s characters to define the topic are futile and the theme remains as elusive as before. Among the most critical themes discussed in the story include love, failed communication, and domestic violence that normalizes and distorts the meaning of love. John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums revolves around love, failed romance in family, marital frustrations due to lack of children, femininity and women’s sexuality, and centers attention on a woman who struggles to achieve happiness in a marriage. Lastly, Ernest Hemingway’s Themes in hills like white elephants incorporates failed communication between two people who claim to be in love and their complete contrasting life decisions. As if in total agreement, the three stories illuminate on common issues that define love, relationships, and marriage, and the position of a woman in a male-dominated society.
The story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love was written by Raymond Craver. The author mainly describes the theme of the genuineness of love. The action is done by the repetition of words, actions, gestures, and character. Craver uses three methods that are developed to describe the primary theme of the story. The first one is the repetitions of certain words which uses the same phrase to define the topic. The words and sentences, mostly repeated include; “love,” “true love,” “I love you among others” which gives the reader the view of the main theme in the story. The second method used is gestures and actions. The author elaborates how the idea of love can be replicated by gestures and action of a couple. An example in the story is “when Nick kissed Laura’s hand, raising it to lips” (Carver, 175). Another is “Mel touched Terri’s cheek with fingers” (171). The author uses gestures and action between the couple to show that love is not only in conversation. The couple expresses their feelings towards each other through their gentle actions. The third method used by Craver to illustrate the central theme in the story is the characters. The primary character is used to develop the validity of true love. Despite efforts by the main protagonist in the story, it still remains unclear the nature of true love in the whole story. Mel tries to explain love by telling irrelevant stories to an elderly couple involved in a road accident. Mel is trying to unite the couple due to wife's disability.
The Chrysanthemums, written by John Steinbeck, describes the position of a woman in a male-dominated community. The author uses Elisa as the primary protagonist, and she highlights the frustration that women undergo in marriages. One theme discussed in the story is sexuality which is shown by Elisa suffers from the husband. To illustrate this Elisa who is 35 years old woman and she is fertile but the couple has no children. To that end, the marriage is portrayed as that of siblings as opposed to that of a husband and wife. To this effect, Elisa looks for the tinker in the efforts of trying to be intimate with him and salvage their relationship. To demonstrate, she develops an urge to touch the leg of the tinker, but she restrains herself from accomplishing this. Also, Eliza describes the stars, “driven into your body and are hot and sharp and lovely” (Steinbeck). From the explanation, she is, expressing her repressed desires which have suddenly awaken in her.
The craving that Elisa has for intimacy makes it appear as though the man is attractive yet that may not be the case. Elisa tries her best efforts to ignite things between them and even bends in seductive posture and make things between the couple work. In addition, due to having an unfulfilled marriage, any slight provocation by a man has an impact on how Elisa behaves as seen in her encounter with the tinker. Another notable instance that is noted where Elisa makes efforts is preparing herself to go out on a date on a date with his husband, Henry. She goes an extra mile by scrubbing her body with pumice, and others make up to make herself presentable. Thereafter, “she looks at herself in the mirror, raising her chest, and pulls in her stomach and then starts to admire her backside. All of this was done to make herself beautiful for Henry and ignite their relationship. Also, she puts new clothes and applies to make up to her face to look attractive. From the above analysis, Elisa is doing everything possible to make things between both of them work. Other themes demonstrated in the story by Steinbeck include femininity, sexuality, and underappreciation. The primary protagonist in the story shows a symbol of societal oppression. Elisa is just confined in home and expected to perform her wife duties like keeping the house clean.
Hills like White Elephants, a short story written by Ernest Hemingway describes a disagreement between a man and a woman in a relationship and how it tainted their relationship. The setting of the story is at a train station in Spain. From the context, we can identify symbolism. The author is vague with the language he uses; thus one can easily understand hence finishing the book. The two characters are faced with a possible operation which is abortion. From the setting, the American and the girl with him are facing a viable operation, an abortion. They differ in terms of views, and the reader can tell this through the body language between them, the conversation and the subtle hints in the setting (Hemingway). One symbol shown in the entire story is deciphering what Hemingway was trying to say is his character development or lack thereof. One can see Jig’s growth throughout the story. She goes from a quiet, complaisant, and agreeable character to one that definitively challenges. She talks...