Oppression had been around since the beginning of humanity which can make it difficult to steer away from because it is a state of prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control and mental pressure or distress in which the differences between two or more groups are viewed as indications that one group is superior. In the relationship between men and women, men have always been superior by default and culture leading many women in relationships feeling inferior. Oppression can come from any type of situation and relationship not just through intimate relationships. The following will reveal oppression as depicted in Hemingway's Hills like White Elephants, Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Othello and Chopin's The Story of an Hour and the ramification of manipulation, envy, and freedom.
Manipulation, fueled with good intent, can be a blessing, but when used wickedly, it is the beginning of one's karmic catastrophe. Being deceptive with good intention is not easily grasped by others because the way manipulation and deception is perceived; no one associates deception with good, but when manipulation is used viciously for the gain of your satisfaction and for the despair of another there is an inevitable brutal voyage in which there is no redemption. In Hills like white Elephants by Ernest Hemingway the man appears to be manipulating Jig into getting an abortion in order to perpetuate a lifestyle in which she is a convenient outlet for his libido, she mentions that she wants to settle down and keep the baby which is a contrary to the nomadic lifestyle they are then living. He however is willing to sacrifice a human life in order to continue their roaming lifestyle constantly trying to coerce her decisions to only benefit him:.
His insistence that "we'll be fine afterward" receives an implicit challenge not only from Jig's speech on what they have lost, but also from her growing unwillingness to play along with his rhetoric of consensus, by which their disagreement is submerged in soothing declarations of his concern for her and indifference to his own wants.
