Gender Miscommunication in Ernest Hemingway’s Selected Short Stories

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway the great American novelist and short story writer has exerted an influence on the direction of American fiction. In order to do a comprehensive analysis of gender and discourse in Hemingway's shorts stories, Deborah Tannen's idea of gendered discourse was used to illustrate the way the author plays with linguistic elements to depict male and female differences in their communications. Working within the framework of Tannen's theory of gendered discourse, the study examined male and female characters and their conversations in the light of gender roles. The present study is an attempt to explore the nature of relationship between men and women in the selected short stories of Ernest Hemingway. It was argued in this study that gender miscommunication is a major aspect of Hemingway's short stories as they apparently demonstrate dominance of men and powerlessness of women in the dominant masculine discourse. It can be concluded that through his stories Hemingway was examining the ineffectiveness of gender binaries in his societies through his characters’ experiences. His writings lead to an understanding of gender as runny and increasingly unstable as societies progress.