John Steinbeck’s short story “The Chrysanthemums” portrays the struggle for equality and respect in a man’s world for the protagonist Elisa Allen. Steinbeck defines Elisa as a strong, proud woman who is limited from personal, social, and sexual fulfillment by the prevailing conception of a woman's role in a world dominated by men. From the beginning of the story, Steinbeck effortlessly describes boundaries Elisa faces through the detailed description of the geography and weather. Steinbeck notes the Salinas Valley as having “gray-flannel” fog and closed off from the sky and the rest of the world (Steinbeck). The expected gendered roles Steinbeck designates to Elisa such as the garden work and what he designates for the men in the story such as the Tinker, being able to travel when “the weather is nice”, show the boundaries against Elisa’s self-fulfillment. He goes into detail about Elisa’s image and persona, her femininity is being suppressed from her facial features, to her clothing, and even the way she handled the chrysanthemums was “over-powerful and over-eager”. By doing this, Steinbeck was able to have the reader examine Elisa’s boundaries that limit her space and self-expression, and present her vulnerability and strength of a woman in the 20th century being dominated by men.
In the beginning of this short story, the description of the farm that Henry and Elisa reside in is described as having “every side sat like a lid on the mountains and made the great
valley a closed pot” and the “yellow stubble fields seemed to be bathed in pale cold sunshine, but there is no sunshine in the valley” (Steinbeck), this depicts the atmosphere as being sad and closed off from the world, which hints Elisa’s isolation from society. Ste...
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...between her garden and the real world, the specified roles for each gender, and her own relationship with herself, Steinbeck is able to effortlessly illustrate the vulnerability and strength Elisa has, and is able to show the limitations a woman has living in the 20th century.
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Works Cited
Bily, Cynthia. "The Chrysanthemums." Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale,
2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Skredsvig, Kari Meyers. "Women's Space, Women's Place: Topoanalysis in Steinbeck's 'The
Chrysanthemums.'." Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica 26.1 (Jan.-June 2000): 59-67. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 135. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums”. Print. 11 Mar. 2014.
While Boyle describes Mrs. Ames as elegant, gentle, and quiet, Steinbeck gives to Elisa more strength. Her face was “lean and strong”, and her figure looked “blocked and heavy in her gardening costume”. Both women find their own ways to cover lack of happiness in their everyday lives. The astronomer’s wife is managing the house finding the silliest things to keep her busy: “…from the removal of the spot left there from dinner on the astronomer’s vest to the severe trashing of the mayonnaise for lunch”. Elisa spends her days in garden raising chrysanthemums “bigger than anybody around here.” The fact that these two women did not have any children can mislead us to the conclusion that they were both trying to satisfy the instincts they were probably having at the age of thirty-five. While this is the case with Elisa, the astronomer’s wife had different problem: the lack of communication with her husband and incapability to understand the world he was in.
Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.
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.
Firstly, Steinbeck uses the method of introduction to show the reader sexism in 1930’s America. Throughout
Elisa's unhappiness in her role as the wife of a cattle farmer is clear in her gardening. Through the authors detailed diction it is clear that gardening is her way of freeing herself from her suffocating environment. “The chrysanthemum stems seemed too small and easy for her energy” which is “over-eager” and “over-powerful” (Steinbeck 460). The intensity with which she gardens, “terrier fingers destroy[ing] such pests before they could get started” suggests more than simply a deep interest, but a form of escape completely submerging her self into the task (Steinbeck 460). It is possible that some...
How does one compare the life of women to men in late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century America? In this time the rights of women were progressing in the United States and there were two important authors, Kate Chopin and John Steinbeck. These authors may have shown the readers a glimpse of the inner sentiments of women in that time. They both wrote a fictitious story about women’s restraints by a masculine driven society that may have some realism to what women’s inequities may have been. The trials of the protagonists in both narratives are distinctive in many ways, only similar when it totals the macho goaded culture of that time. Even so, In Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing we hold two unlike fictional characters in two very different short stories similar to Elisa Allen in the “Chrysanthemums” and Mrs. Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”, that have unusual struggles that came from the same sort of antagonist.
...tmosphere in the story, this creates a feeling of uneasiness and fear of the isolated environment which inevitably affects the story’s protagonists. The use of descriptive words describing the farmland allows the author to create a sense of despair and gloom. An example where this can be found is, "There was a deep hollow within, a vast darkness engulfed beneath the tides of a moaning wind" (233). By using such diction Ross is effectively able to further reinforce Ellen’s isolation and alienation from society.
Restraints are set by parents on their children to aid with the developmental process and help with the maturity level. Restrictions and the ability to control exist in our society and our lives. We encounter restraints daily: job, doors, people, and the most frequently used and arduous become intangible. In the following stories tangible and intangible scenarios are presented. Autonomy, desires, and talents spurned by the husbands in John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums and Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The authors share views regarding a similar theme of male domination and imprisonment. “The Yellow Wallpaper” involves the treatment of a depressed woman who is driven insane in a male imposed detention in her own room. On the other hand, Elisa Allen in the “The Chrysanthemums” struggles internally to find her place in a fully male dominated society with definite gender roles. The mirror-like situations bring upon a different reaction for both the women in different ways. The importance of symbolism, control from their husbands, and the lack of a healthy marriage will be discussed in this paper in two stories.
Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V Roberts and Robert Zweig. 10th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 416-422. Print.
Elisa Allen is a thirty-five-year-old woman who lives on a ranch in the Salinas Valley with her husband Henry. She is "lean and strong," and wears shapeless, functional clothes (Steinbeck 203). The couple has no children, no pets, no near neighbors, and Henry is busy doing chores on the ranch throughout the day. Elisa fills her hours by vigorously cleaning the ''hard-swept looking little house, with hard-polished windows,'' and by tending her flower garden (204). She has ''a gift'' for growing things, especially her chrysanthemums, and she is proud of it (204).
The Salinas Valley is symbolic to Elisa’s inner feelings. The farm responsibilities Elisa shared with her husband Henry encouraged “cold and tender” thoughts that often left Elisa feeling “closed off from the rest of the world” (paragraph 1). Her consistent lonely and empty days began to “fog” the belief of any better days to come. The [quiet of waiting] was yearning for any “sharp and positive” (paragraph 2) notion that had yet to be nurtured. But until Elisa was given any chance to set free of such desires she had to remain forcibly content inside of her chrysanthemum garden.
Elisa is at her strongest and most proud in the garden and becomes weak when placed in feminine positions such as going out to dinner with her husband. Steinbeck carefully narrates this woman’s frequent shifts between femininity and masculinity over a short period of time. In the opening of the story, Elisa is emasculated by the description of her clothing. She wears "a man’s black hat pulled low down over her eyes, clodhopper shoes, a figure print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron." (paragraph 5).
The symbolic nature of this story relies on the creation of images of isolation, routine/mechanical lives, and oppression. A feeling of the isolation of the couple and Elisa individually is created through the description of the setting, “As in much of his fiction, this story opens with a personified landscape, a paysage moralisé in which the weather and geographical setting are deeply symbolic gesturing in the direction of the story’s ultimate meaning” (Parini 210). It is described as being “…closed off …from the sky and the rest of the world” (Steinbeck 213). This isolation is further developed as the reader learns that the couple goes into town ...
The difference between men and women is a very controversial issue, while there are obviously physical differences; the problem is how the genders are treated. It is stereotypically thought that the men do the labor work and make all the money, while the women stay in the house, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. While this stereotype does not exist as much in the 21st century, it was very prevalent in the 1900s. By using many different literary tools such as character development, symbolism, and setting, Alice Munro’s Boys and Girls and John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums challenge this controversial topic of the treatment of women versus men in the 1900s.
Do we truly understand how the meaning to equality among men and women affect society. Jobs, health, and education are affected by what transpires from the meaning to gender equality. Throughout history equality has been debated. Equality is defined as getting respect and giving respect regardless of gender or culture through fair treatment and maximized happiness. Balance and harmony are developed from the application of ethical theories to aid society in defining the meaning to gender equality rather than debating the issue. Therefore, defining gender equality should be the role of society by utilizing ethical theories. The theories can be consequentialist or nonconsequentialist acts that develop and maintain good morality and ethical