Chrysanthemums Case

Some people can live a life full of hope and prosperity, but still have the emotional feeling of loneliness and abandonment. In "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck, Elisa Allen is a woman reaching her middle age, is at a point in her life when she has begun to realize that her creative and energetic drive is exceeding the opportunities for her expression. She is trapped inside an airless world and her existence is reaching its final boiling point to life. She struggles to discover who she represents in society. Symbolism, characterization, and setting will describe the inequality of gender in modern society and how it can affect other woman.

Symbolism shows the hidden meaning behind Elisa's fragile state. Elisa seems to be a lonely woman who finds more joy and fulfillment in gardening than she does in her martial life. The irritation and resistance melted from Elisa's face, "Oh, those are chrysanthemums, giant whites and yellows. I raise them every year, bigger than anybody around here" (Steinbeck 1249). The Chrysanthemums are a symbolism to Elisa and the limited capacity of her life. Elisa and the Chrysanthemums are strong, lovely, and thriving like a flower should be. The tinker rejects the flowers which show how woman are rejected in society. Women are rejected because they are not qualified to feel the needs of a man's lifestyle which makes them inferior in a man's world. Along with her determined spirit, she portrays a sense of weakness. "The high-grey flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot" (1246). The Salinas valley is like the center of Elisa's personality. It is a dark place and enclosed from the rest of the world itself. She feels enslaved and trapped inside a "closed pot" trying to escape a world where her existence is being undermined to its final boiling point. We wonder why the Allen's never had children of their own to raise. Along with Steinbeck, Mordecai Marcus suggests the chrysanthemums are a "substitute for children," which the Allen's are apparently without

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(Palmerino). The Chrysanthemums are well taken care of with the love and support from the trees and Elisa Allen. We them being a secondary figure to the children that she and her husband wish they had. The chrysanthemum's petals orderly unfolding in the Japanese philosophy represent perfection. In relations to the story, Elisa wants to break away from perfection and order and live according her own rules and regulations.

Elisa is overeager and over powerful:

Her face was lean and strong [whose] eyes were as clear as water. Her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume, a man's black hat pulled low down over her eyes, clod-hopper shoes, a figured print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron with four big pockets to hold the snips, the trowel and scratcher, the seeds, and the knife she worked with. She wore heavy leather gloves to protect her while she worked. (Steinbeck 1246)

She is represented as a masculine figure. She is lean and strong: but is portrayed as fat because of the clothes she wears. To reveal her feminine persona we must peel back the layer clothing she wears on her back to see her true nature inside. As her day continues, a visitor momentarily enters her life, showing her the life she yearns for. "Elisa's voice grew husky. She broke in on him, "I've never lived as you do, but I know what you mean" (1250). The stranger gives the impression he is interested in her. He is someone her husband is not. With manipulative words, they fill her heart with the hope of sudden change and excitement. We soon realize that

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these from the beginning hopes are damaged when Elisa eventually comes to term that she has been used. The stranger manages to break Elisa's heart, not because of her new profound appearance, but because of who Elisa really is. Nevertheless, Elisa is an "embryonic feminist" and a "sexually frustrated woman" whose release comes only from gardening. She secures herself with in a fortress of sexual reticence and self-withholding (Palmerino). She finds the strength to use her voice instead of being rejected by her husband and the stranger who comes to visit. Like society today, woman are rejected by men who want to manipulate the relationship to prove they better and not inferior.

On the other hand, her husband Henry puts on a joking tone about the female persona. "'There's fights tonight. How'd you like to go to the fights?" "Oh no," she said breathlessly. "No, I wouldn't like fights." "Just fooling, Elisa we'll go to a movie."' (Steinbeck 1247). As a traditional man, Henry functions in the story as a stand-in for the benevolent society as a whole.