The philosophy Boethius once said as he reflected on his life while wasting away in a prison cell, “there is no pain so great as the contemplation of former happiness in present sorrow.” Nostalgia, is a universal theme present in the cannon of literature. The theme explores looking back at a better time from the vantage point of a deplorable condition. This essay explores this theme in two different stories, that unfold the at different thematic tempos.
In Jewett the white heron, the focus character Sylvia resists the intrusion of a man in her quite environment of living with her grandma on her farm. In the second, a couple finding themselves unwantingly with child, wait for a train that directs them towards an a planned abortion.
The changes experienced in both essays occur in different time frames.
In “The White Heron” the change in condition that Silvia wishes to return to “normal” occurs in a short period of time. In Ernest Hemmingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” the change has occurred gradually and the problem is persisting in the present, the solution to the pregnancy still optional.
In classic Hemmingway style, Hills Like White Elephants gives us an economy of information. However, the implications of the information that it does contain is what is important. From the start of their dialogue Hemmingway creates mood between the man in the woman of an anxious tension. This is caused by the forthcoming abortion that will come with the train. We can compare the emotion to Fitzgerald’s Gatsby at the stage of his life the novel closes with. He is unhappy with the way things are in the present and therefore are attempting to gain that ‘something’ that seems to have been lost in the past. Speaking with regard to the abortion, the girl says, “But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?” The operative word in this sentence is ‘again.’ It is often the case with Hemmingway a simple sentence or word can often carries with it a vast amount of weight.
In saying things will be nice again, the girl implies that things are not nice currently, they once were nice, and there is a hope that they will once again be nice. The operation is to Hemmingway’s couple as to Fitzgerald’s couple was with reuniting to Daisy was to Gatsby. Hemmingway like Fitzgerald causes the reader to contemplate the idea of a happy past in the midst of an unhappy present. This causes one to ask if it is ever possible to regain something temporally lost. Gatsby’s answer to this was of course you can. Fitzgerald leads his readers to oppose Gatsby’s view.
It seems that Hemmingway’s couple on some level acknowledges that the abortion will not lead them back to time of former bliss. The girl says that “we could have everything” only to later correct herself and say “No we can’t. It isn’t ours any more.” Despite the man’s insistence that things will be better she is forced to admit “once they take it away you n ever get it back.” There present condition is then made worse due to the happiness they once had. Getting rid of the baby would be, in the man’s eyes, returning to normal.
In “The White Heron” getting rid of the woman is the operative goal to return to the past, if not happiness, at least tranquility and peace of mind. The masculinity of the man is at first both scary. Everything about him is an invasion into her abode. Sylvia is described as a quite girl, while everything from the man’s gun to his boots and demeanor is overt. He also changes the environment around Sylvia by killing birds whose presence she enjoyed. Eventually though Sylvia’s reluctance towards this change in her environments is changed to one of awe and wonder. In this outside change to her environment she begins to accept a change within herself. Instead of looking upon the man as something dangerous and new she views him as a man, something that causes her to become infatuated by his presence and desire to be in his company and impress him by aiding him in his search for a white heron.
Feminist scholars view the story as women rebelling against the literature of male authors. Paul John Eakin’s essay “Sarah Orne Jewett and the Meaning of Country Life” explores the essay’s theme of departure from a country life to one of an urban setting. Speaking of the author’s intention behind the story he writes, “Miss Jewett believed that the inhabitants of the world in which she had grown up could still be identified by the houses they lived in and the clothes they wore, by which their neighbors said about them and what the whole town new.” (507, Eakin). The disturbance of this is the entrance of the man, who Eakin argues symbolizes a change from real to urban, something, that was happening at a societal level during the story’s written context.
Eakin goes on to argue, that the transition is not just one of technology but also of traditional values versus more liberal modern belief systems. The author, he says, “dedicated her art to the conservation of traditional community values.” (508). The return than to the happier prior time, when life was lived sans conflict, is on the surface not as easy to obtain as the woman in Hemmingway’s “Hills Like White Elepants.” Although, the girl, Jip, wonders if it is not just as impossible to return to. The man points out that the only thing that has changed in their situation is the advent of her pregnancy. He follows a line of logic that if the pregnancy is eliminated, they will return to how things were in the past.
If you use a “classic” novel written at the time period, F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gastby, we see that this was a common theme at the time. Gatsby embodies American dream for many, for him, his fortune is merely the means to an end he considers far greater. When challenged by Nick on account of his being able to repeat the past, he enthusiastically declares, “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” (116). It is only when Gatsby begins to contemplate the possibility that his future may not be capable of repeating the past that he begins to become unraveled and his demise is met.
Gatsby’s “something commensurate” appears necessary for a man’s happiness while at the same time is capable of leading to his downfall and misery. This downfall and misery is seen as a symptom of a change and a return to the former way of life seen as the solution to present unwanted circumstance, a universal theme fleshed out in different ways in both Jewett and Hemmingway’s short stories discussed in this essay.
The theme is constant in all three that portray why seeking the attainment of something greater than present circumstance can be necessary for happiness and purpose but also lead to disillusionment when it is not as advertised. It is when the end sought is greater than the capacity of a person to fulfill it that misery results, for when all of a person’s dreams rest on a removed ideal, reality serves as the antagonist of the dreamer. In American literature, the protagonist is often an ideal objective sought in a realistic world.
When exploring this ideal dream found in American literature, it is important to be acquainted with the philosophical movements taking place at the same time the literature was being written. It is not to say that either had a direct effect on the other, but would be better stated that both reflect the sentiments of the time. The 20th century saw a strong movement into various schools of idealistic thought and also a movement led by William James into pragmatic intelligence. Herbert Wallace Schneider described the philosophical movement of the early 20th century as, “The passage from orthodoxy to idealism.” He saw this as an almost unavoidable transition. (Schneider, 10). These sentiments reflected a social revolution of the times. Prodigious characters such as Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller were on hand to test the limits of human ability into realms of financial success previously not contemplated by the country’s everyman. They served as living testaments that anything desired was attainable. Henry Ford can be quoted having said, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t.”
Works Cited
Cary, Richard. Sarah Orne Jewett. Twayne, 1962, 175 p.
Eakin, Paul John. “Sarah Orne Jewett and the Meaning of Country Life.” American Literature 38, No. 4.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1991
Hemingway, Ernest. Men without women. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1927. Print.
Jewett, Sarah Orne, Charles Waugh, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Josephine Donovan. Best stories of Sarah Orne Jewett. Augusta, Me.: L. Tapley, 1988. Print.
Jewett, Sarah Orne. "A White Heron Critical Essay by Sarah Orne Jewett Volume 44." Study Guides, Lesson Plans, Homework Help, Answers & More - eNotes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2013.
