I recently read for the first time Earnest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, and was struck by several dialogues in which the author presented his interpretation of a female voice. I remember thinking at a certain point that all the women in his novel seemed rather disagreeable in their speech, and furthermore, that I have never known a woman to talk like the women in the story. It drew my thoughts toward our genderlect studies, and the interesting literary situation of a female voice created by a male author (and vice versa). Thus, I found the Hemingway piece that we have read for class which contains a back and forth dialogue between a man and a woman. In this story, the female dialogue that Hemingway creates appears to be characterized by a slightly hybrid female-male voice. While it is grounded with female speech-mannerisms, such as soft hedges, questions, directives, and empathetic emotion, the sentences and insertions carry with them subtle hints of masculinity by interruption, competitive insult, and short and direct statements. The following paragraphs are an analysis of this dialogue based on the genderlect studies and findings by Jennifer Coates in her book, Women, Men, and Language, particularly those found in chapter 6 titled, “Gender Differences in Conversational Practice” (Coates 85).
Hemingway accurately captures the female genderlect in his “girl” character most poignantly through her use of questions, directives, hedges, and empathetic emotion. It is with a question that the female voice begins the story’s dialogue, “What should we drink?” (Hemingway 1032). This linguistic act follows Coates’ findings that women tend to “exploit questions…in order to keep the conversation going” (Coates 93). She continues throughout the very short story to insert fifteen more questions (both regular and tag questions) into the dialogue, strongly demonstrating the feminine speech mechanism of supporting the other speaker in conversation by way of the question-invitation. In this opening moment, she then proceeds to suggest to the man “Let’s drink beer,” using a soft directive (“Let’s”) rather than a command—another typically female device. Throughout the story she uses a significant amount of diction with similar implications such as “could,” “would,” “maybe,” and “we’ll see,” indicating gentle, collective, and non-assertive suggestions that leave room for the other speaker’s consideration and participation.
The female speaker’s use of hedges to soften her speech is similar to the two devices explained above, and contains aspects of both. She adds questions to the end of her statements to cushion her speech, making them seem less like opinions and more like indifferent observations, evident in these examples: “I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasn’t that bright?” and “That’s all we do—isn’t it…?” (Hemingway 1033). She also includes empty words to refrain from excessive harshness and distance herself from what she is trying to convey: “Can we maybe stop talking?” (Hemingway 1035). It is also evident, through the work of these devices, that her speech is inlayed with more explicit emotion than the man. It is easy to hear concern in her voice through the uncertainty expressed by her questions, “And you think then we’ll be alright and be happy?” “And if I do it, you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?” (Hemingway 1034). These doubtful sentiments compared to those of the male character’s “We’ll be fine afterward,” and “I know we will,” accurately portray Coates’ observations of the male tendency to express certainty in conversation due to an inherent inclination to use “strong directive forms to demonstrate control” (Coates 95).
Thus, by these representations Hemingway creates very accurate aspects of both male and female conversational speech. However, there are several instances in which generally masculine speech-mannerisms come out in the female voice. First, Coates presents that “certain elements of competition enter into all male-talk” (Coates 104). In the beginning of the story, the female creates a competitive environment when she tells the man her assumption that “No, you wouldn’t have [seen a white elephant before],” to which he promptly replies “I might have…just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything” (Hemingway 1033). Throwing him a competitive insult in this manner is not generally a feminine quality of speech, demonstrating a slightly masculine quality within her voice. Similarly, where overt interruption tends to occur more prominently in male speech, the female character in this story is the only interrupter within their conversation, demonstrating more hints of masculinity in her speech: (M) “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do—-” (F) “Nor that isn’t good for me…” (M) “All right, but you’ve got to realize—-” (F) “I realize…” (Hemingway 1035). The interruptions serve to place control of the conversation in the female character’s hands, an authority she seems to possess through the course of the whole story. While her sentences do contain feminine emotion as expressed in the preceding paragraphs, they are characterized by short, limited, and somewhat indifferent statements such as “I don’t care about me,” and “I feel fine” (Hemingway 1034-35). By the end of the story, she appears to withhold her true sentiments, and is ultimately the one who seeks to keep the conversation short and shallow, all aspects which give her speech control over the man’s and render her voice an interesting mix of feminine and masculine genderlect.
21 October 2019
Works Cited:
Coates, Jennifer. Women, Men, and Language, 3rd Ed. Pearson Education Limited, Edinburgh, 2004.
Hemmingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter 9th Ed. Edited by Robert S Levine, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2017.