Chrysanthemums
Neither The Feminine Mystique nor The Second Sex sits on my bookshelf. I have never watched an episode of Xena the Warrior Princess. I am not a card holding member of NOW. Nor do I have a bumper sticker on my car that says "God is coming and she is pissed." I shave my armpits regularly and even watch pretty-boy football on occasion. Quite honestly, I delight in the company of men. So please do not take this as a bout of self-righteousness when I say that after reading "The Chrysanthemums" I have come to this conclusion: Steinbeck should not write women. He doesn't seem able to escape stereotypes and his own misogynist streak to see women as anything more than absolutes. Think about it. We have Ma Joad as the great Earth mother, the pillar of strength, the glue that holds her family together against poverty and social injustice. And Curly's wife weighs in as the bad seed, the juicy tart, the selfish beauty in red feather mules that brings destruction and ruin to the dreams of the men she meets-a sausage curled Medusa who turns herself and pathetic Lenny into stone. She is such a stereotype that she doesn't need a name of her own. Then there's the ambitious and unscrupulous Kate who beds brothers, produces and abandons s
He wants a job with pay or a free meal; she instead "runs excitedly along the geranium-bordered path to the back of the house" to get him a big red (passion, pant-pant) flower pot to fill with her, self (1466)! No, chrysanthemums. Well, yes, self and chrysanthemums are the same thing. Oh, boy! Clippings! Because he asked for seed? Eek. And Mr. Eastwood walks right through the gate (that Henry only leaned on) to have her reach up and touch his knees "crouched low like a fawning dog" (1467). As "her breast swelled passionately," Elisa puts the final, fervent touch to her trite handyman fantasy. Pressing forward with, "...I know what you mean. When the night is dark-why, the stars are sharp-pointed...Why, you rise up and up! Every pointed star gets driven into your body. It's like that. Hot and sharp and-lovely"(1467). I don't know about you, but I'm blushing. And Steinbeck is reveling in making her as sleazy as a cheap red negligee. But she still hasn't escaped her Elisa controlled universe. Her world, not just the chrysanthemums, seems "too small and easy for her energy" (1463). The house is white, scrubbed, swept, and polished-even the mud mat is clean. This is a landscape bereft of children and she likes it that way. With her tidy little fence to keep the large dogs out of her prized flowers, she works with "terrier fingers" (1463) with plants that, like her, will never bear life-giving fruit. Instead, she raises something pretty that has a "good bitter" smell to it; she raises replicas of herself. Steinbeck even uses the same adjective, "strong," to describe Elisa's face and the flowers. Henry resents and admires both Elisa and the flowers. His first words to her are "At it again," chased closely by "You've got a strong new crop coming" (1463). Henry further suggests that she work in the fruit orchard, implying that her infertility is a matter of choice, a matter of where she has put and continues to put her energy. Political correctness is a new trick. We like Hester Prynne for her rejection of Puritan rule. We root for Kate in Taming of the Shrew and are disappointed when she is tamed. We love it when Elisa Doolittle stands up to Henry Higgins and are horrified at the prospect of her spending the rest of her life fetching his slippers. We'd much rather see Louise go over the lip of the Grand Canyon, than go back to her deplorable husband (although we do mourn the loss of the '54 Thunderbird). We want Steinbeck to give us a sensitive portrait of a frustrated woman. Instead, he has given a merciless portrait of an un-woman. Her pettiness, her misplaced loyalties and her misplaced priorities, her inability to see the true worth and valu
Some common words found in the essay are:
Elisa Allen, It's Hot, Steinbeck Elisa, Joad Earth, Thunderbird Steinbeck, Warrior Princess, Danielle Steele's, Eek Eastwood, Henry Higgins, Feminine Mystique, wonder elisa, bitchy bitchy,
Approximate Word count = 1833
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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