A Feminist Perspective of John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums
John Steinbeck, in his short story "The Chrysanthemums" depicts the trials of a woman attempting to gain power in a man's world. Elisa Allen tries to define the boundaries of her role as a woman in such a closed society. While her environment is portrayed as a tool for social repression, it is through nature in her garden where Elisa gains and shows off her power. As the story progresses, Elisa has trouble extending this power outside of the fence that surrounds her garden. In the end, Elisa learns but does not readily accept, that she possesses a feminine power weak for the time, not the masculine one she had tried so hard to achieve through its imitation.
The work begins with a look at the story's setting. "The Chrysanthemums" was written in 1938, and the story takes place roughly around the same time. It is winter in Salinas Valley, California. The most prominent feature is the "gray-flannel fog" which hid the valley "from the rest of the world" (396). The mountains and valleys and sky and fog encapsulate everything inside as a "closed pot" (396). Inside this shut-off habitat the environment is trying to change. Just as the farmers are waiting for an unlikely rain, Elisa and all women are hopeful for a change in their enclosed lives. Steinbeck’s foreshadows, "It was a time of quiet and waiting" (396).
The action of the story opens with Elisa Allen working in her garden. She is surrounded by a wire fence, which physically is there to protect her flowers from the farm animals. This barrier symbolizes her life; she is fenced in from the real world, from a man's world. It is a smaller, on-earth version of the environment in which they live. This man's...
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...mean she couldn't still be strong. The peddler's business of selling his service of fixing pots closes women out of his world just as natural fog closes of the valley. Although we hope her tears can be compared to the pruning she does to her precious chrysanthemums, clipping them backed for future and stronger growth, Steinbeck leaves the reader questioning the future for women. Elisa's tears will not rid the valley of the fog, for as Steinbeck tells us in the beginning, "fog and rain do not go together" (396). While Elisa will continue to dominate her immediate surrounding inside the fence using her power from nature, but she will not gain power outside of it, in a man's world.
Work Cited
Steinbeck, John. "The Chrysanthemums." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1995.
However, because of her parents always said to her that she is not good enough of getting less than a perfect four-point grade average. Nevertheless, in the poem it stated, “dear mother and father. I apologize for disappointing you. I have worked very hard, not good enough”, which her parent made the made the whole atmosphere for their daughter worse because she is already way over her head. Also, She feels stressed and pressured, which one-day, she was on the edge of her emotion and led to her to jump to her death from her dorm window. This affected me as a reader because I am also an Asian-American student, if my parents told me and give me pressure that I have to always get a four-point average grade I think I would go crazy and probably do the same thing as she
Within Steinbeck's story, "Chrysanthemums," the main character, Elisa Allen, is confronted with many instances of conflict. Steinbeck uses chrysanthemums to symbolize this conflict and Elisa's self-worth. By examining these points of conflict and the symbolism presented by the chrysanthemums, the meaning of the story can be better determined.
mans influence on the Indians in I Heard The Owl Call My Name was much greater.
Elisa life in the “closed pot” of the Salinas Valley is not one that she wants, but it is one that she cannot escape. Without the encouragement of a man, she cannot find the strength to look beyond her life of gardening and household chores. Until she does, she will remain trapped in role as a house-wife.
The story is riddled with death; all of the dead he’s has seen: Linda, Ted Lavender, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, the man he killed, and all the others without names. Through his memories of them he relives his time in Vietnam. By telling their stories he “keeps dreaming dreaming them alive.” to try and restore his
In the short story “The Chrysanthemums” John Steinbeck uses symbolism to reflect the characteristics of his main character Elisa Allen. Elisa, a married woman uncovers her deeply smothered femininity in an inconspicuous sense. Her life in the valley had become limited to housewife duties and the only sustenance that seemed to exist could merely be found in her chrysanthemum garden. Not until she becomes encountered with a remote tinker-man out and about seeking for work, does she begin to reach many of the internal emotions that had long inhibited her femininity. The tinker subtlety engages an interest in Elisa’s chrysanthemum garden that encourages Elisa to react radically. When Elisa realizes that there are other ways to live she attempts to lift the lid off of the Salinas Valley, but unfortunately the tinker’s insincere actions resort Elisa back to her old self and leaves Elisa without any optimism for her hollow breakthrough. Steinbeck’s somber details of the setting, strong description of the chrysanthemums and meaningful illustration of the red flower-pot reveal the distant, natural, ambitions Elisa Allen desired to attain.
“The Civil Rights Act of 1866 defined all persons born in the United States as citizens and listed certain rights of all citizens, including the right to testify in court, own property, make contracts, bring lawsuits, and enjoy full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 430). To forever protect the freed people’s rights as citizens the Fourteenth Amendment was created. The Fourteenth Amendment was still flawed. Woman’s rights supporters Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony “complained that the amendment, for the first time, introduced the word male into the constitution in connection with voting and rights” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 431). After much Congressional debate in February 1869 Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment. It “prohibited both federal and state governments from restricting a person’s right to vote because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 435). Stanton and Anthony were against this amendment too because it “ignored restrictions based on sex” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 435). The amendment still didn’t lessen the
horror and pity and a kind of pleasure and is most effective between kindred . Aristotle lays out
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According to the American Psychological Society, there is evidence that early mother-child bonding results in positive
He is like other authors, sympathetic to their opposite gender. “The Chrysanthemums” is one of his works were he basically expresses his opinion and how he feels about women. This story is about Elisa Allen, a woman who’s is doing her favorite thing planting and growing chrysanthemums. She is very passionate about doing this. Elis feels superior and strong when working with her flowers, “The chrysanthemum stems seemed too small and easy for her energy.” (Steinbeck, John 1) Her husband doesn’t appreciate her talent. He tells her “I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.” (Steinbeck, John 2) The inferior and weak woman starts to come out now. It came out even more after her husband said that but also when she and her husband are driving to town. She sees the flowers the pot mender had asked for dumped on the side of the road. He must have dumped them right after he left her house. The pot mender played her. He acted interested in what she was doing so Elisa would have sympathy for him and give him something to fix up. With the way her husband and the pot mender acted toward her and her plants made her feel rejected and hurt.
Elisa Allen is a strong woman. She is strong because of her manly qualities. Her masculinity shines through because of the way she covers up herself. There was a feminine part of her wanting to emerge as she wore the "print dress" (279) while working in her flower garden. However, the men's clothing and accessories she wore covered this up. The "squatting" (281) position she engaged in to work in her garden was not the feminine kneeling that a true lady would have chosen. She "shoved the thick scissors in her apron pocket" (282), which was not the delicate way a woman would have done it. She was not able to cultivate her chrysanthemums in a way that was gentle and loving because of her masculine traits. She was not squeamish when it came to protecting her flowers. She would simply use her "fingers" (280) to eliminate any type of pest that was a threat to them. A true woman would have gagged at the very thought of using her bare hands to mash a bug. Elisa was a hard and successful laborer because her chrysanthemums "had ten-inch blooms" (283); however, she still had not succeeded in child bearing.
Elisa Allen embodies the image of a simple woman eager to escape the confines of a gender defined role in society. Readers are introduced to Elisa as a 35 year old, strong woman living with her husband, Henry, on a ranch in Salinas Valley (Steinbeck 460). Elisa’s masculinity is highlighted from the attire she is wearing to the strength in her hands. Henry affirms that Elisa is capable in her endeavors when he states, “you’ve got a gift with things,” in regards to her garden (Steinbeck 460). Even though Elisa is delighted at Henry’s suggestion that she work in the orchard, the idea does not seem to get a second thought (Steinbeck 460). The idea of a woman working in the orchard is dismissed on the premise that the orchard is not a woman’s place. In Elisa’s account with the man in the wagon, her sexuality exudes in her graphic explanation of picking off the flower buds and being under the stars, to the point that she almost physically touches the man (Steinbeck 463). Her desire would go unsatisfied, as it would not be appropriate for her to act on her impulse. Elisa is searching for fulfillment in life but finds her role to be trivial. Intrigued by the idea of traveling, as the gentleman in the wagon does, she states, “It must be very nice. I wish women could do such things.” She is shot down as the man replies, “It ain’t the right kind of a life for a woman” (Steinbeck 464). This conversation clearly depicts the prevalent inequality of the sexes. Furthermore, once the man leaves in the caravan Elisa cements her urge for something more, looking out at the horizon whispering, “That’s a bright direction. There’s a glowing there” (Steinbeck 464-465).
Feminism in John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums. At first glance, John Steinbeck’s "The Chrysanthemums" seems to be a story about a woman whose niche is in the garden. Upon deeper inspection, the story has strong notes of feminism in the central character, Elisa Allen. Elisa’s actions and feelings reflect her struggle as a woman trying and failing to emasculate herself in a male-dominated society.
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