The Chrysanthemums
John Steinbeck's short story The Chrysanthemums shows Elisa Allen, a strong, capable, childless woman of thirty-five who is frustrated with her present life with her husband, Henry, a man of unscrupulous confidence (French 83). She "longs for what women's magazines vaguely call romance" (Segal 215), and is "a woman who has a strength of will usually identified with men, as well as an ambiguous combination of traditionally masculine and feminine traits" (Hughes 59). Through symbolism Steinbeck shows how Elisa struggles to fulfill her personal, social, and sexual needs as a woman in a world dominated by men.The story opens by describing a "high gray flannel fog of winter [that] closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from the rest of the world." This image represents Elisa's depression, boredom, and lack of change in her life. The heavy fog is further described as making the valley appear as a "closed pot," which is in relation to Elisa's emotions and how she keeps them to herself and keeps them inside. Elisa's frustration to conform to a woman's role is evident when she is first introduced. She is described as "blocked and heavy" because she is wearing heavy gloves, heavy shoes, a "ma
Segal, David., ed. Short Story Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers. Vol. 11. Michigan: Gale Research, Inc., 1992. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "As a dominant symbol Elisa's chrysanthemums are the very backbone of the plot" (Hughes 60). They symbolize Elisa's role as a mother, as she is frustrated with her life because children and romance are missing in her marriage with Henry. She tends to her garden with love and care just like a mother would to her child. She even "explains lovingly to the tinker how to care for them as if they were leaving home for the first time" (Hughes 60). "The chrysanthemum stalks seem to be phallic symbols, and Elisa's over eager snipping of them suggests castration" (Hughes 60). The "soft blossoms shaped like a woman's breasts [also] suggest the voluptuous softness of a sexually mature woman" (Segal 215). Elisa puts a wire fence around her garden to protect the flowers and she makes sure no "aphids, no sow bugs or snails or cutworms" get to them. These bugs represent natural harm to her flowers and she protects that from happening. When Henry compliments her on her flowers she is p! Elisa "has limited knowledge of the manipulativeness of trades people, [and] this limitation makes her vulnerable to exploitation by an itinerant tinker who praises her beautiful flowers in order to get the pot from one of her plants" ("Fiction Revi
Some common words found in the essay are:
Salinas Valley, Henry Hughes, Fiction Revisited, Elisa Allen, Steinbeck Elisa, Twayne Publishers, John Steinbeck's, Writing Process, hughes 61, Segal David, hughes 60, Prentice Hall, segal 215, french warren john, french warren, twayne publishers, elisa's frustration, frustrated life, passing tinker, life husband, fiction revisited,
Approximate Word count = 984
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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