The Chrysanthemums - Assignment Example

Chrysanthemums The Chrysanthemums was written by John Steinbeck in 1838. It tells the story of a frustrated woman named Elisa, a wife of a dim-witted ranch owner. Her life is devoted to gardening, and her favorite flowers are chrysanthemums. These flowers symbolize her: bitter-smelling, fragile and nice to look at. She is frustrated in a sense that she knows what her potentials are, which are greater than the men in the story. She knows that she can be better than them but because of the restraints in the society, she can’t really act on her wants, sometimes needs.

This is evident on her passion to pursue a life of adventure, on the road, like the tinker who came up her house one day. Her sexual needs are also mentioned in the story, having shared a flirtatious banter with the tinker and even kneeling in front of him like “a fawning dog”. It should be noted that Elisa doesn’t have kids and she was already 35, which signals that she and her husband Hank do not really have a productive, if at all, sexual relationship. The story ended with Elisa crying because she knew that she would be forever kept in that “closed pot” of a valley.

The conflict of the story is character vs. society. This is set in 1938 and the women are not as privileged as men. Even though we see that Elisa is smarter and better than the two men, she is still confined to the house, tending flowers instead of doing something more productive. She finds this frustrating, and this is not her fault, it’s the society’s. Her happiness and self-fulfillment is being regulated by the society and it’s suffocating her. The theme is also gender inequality. We see this story as a good reflection of society in that day, and Elisa symbolizes the women as much as the two male characters symbolize the men.

However great a woman can be, she is still relegated to doing house work, just because of her sex. It was written in a third person point of view, but is told in Elisa’s point of view. There are a lot of symbols present in the story. The most evident symbol is the chrysanthemums themselves, symbolizing Elisa. This denotes that Elisa is a plain gardener with a green thumb but the flowers connote that Elisa is a beautiful and strong woman. In fact, the flowers are Elisa. When the tinker appreciated the chrysanthemums, she felt empowered, and doubly so when he asked for the flowers.

Her husband even noted that she was different, but when she saw that the buds were thrown away, she sank back to her old, sad self. The place, Salinas Valley, is also a worthy symbol. It was heavily described in the beginning of the story as a closed pot with a lid. This symbolizes the limited scope of Elisa’s life. It was also mentioned that it was foggy and it’s devoid of sunshine. Sunshine means happiness and this means Elisa is not happy. This denotes that the weather in Salinas Valley is dismal and cold but the connotation is more important, stating that Elisa’s life is limited, sad and cold, too.

Reference: Steinbeck, John. The Chrysanthemums. Logan, IA: Perfection Learning. 2007 (originally published 1938). Print.