Compare And Contrast The Chrysanthemums And Yellow Wallpaper

In the story “The Chrysanthemums” the women Elisa Allen had this deep passion for the flowers call chrysanthemums. That even her husband Henry gave her much space when she was dealing with the chrysanthemums. The story opens when Elisa hears a “squeak of wheels and a plod of hoofs”, and a man drives up in and old spring wagon and does not have a name but simply called the man. Earning a meager living, he fixes pots and sharpens scissors and knives. He travels from San Diego to Seattle and back every year. The man chats and jokes with Elisa, but she admits that she that she has no work for him to do. When he presses for a small job and she becomes annoyed and tries to send him away. Suddenly, the man’s attention turns to the flowers and gives a brief description of the chrysanthemums while Elisa is attending the flowers. The man says kind of long stemmed flower, looks like a quick puff of smoke, and Elisa becomes delighted of the description.

Elisa’s favorite hobby is gardening. I realized that’s the only thing she loves doing, which makes her happy. Her favorite flower is the chrysanthemums, thus the title of the story. Mr. Steinbeck, illustrates this woman in masculine terms, yet he makes it known that she’s a woman. Although it’s not mentioned or said in an obvious way, it’s easy to presume that Elisa isn’t happy within her life or marriage outside of gardening. Several attributes that Elisa has, helped me come to this conclusion: her insecurities, being naïve and seemingly frustrated in the

Steinbeck who masterfully uses the chrysanthemums as a direct correlation to Elisa, sweet, soft, and attractive. Elisa is sexual besides having above average smarts. Yet, she doesn’t give the impression that she would get involved in extra marital activity that makes her faithful and more captivating to the readers. The similarities to her flowers who often get attention for their size and boldness is a stark contrast to what we see from Elisa as she seems more reserved and off to the side. Elisa becomes very trusting of the tinkerer as she starts asking questions and wondering if she can do this type of work. To be outgoing and spontaneous is what she dreams of being in her rather mundane life.

Soon after Henry leaves to finish he work, the tinker is introduced into the story. Here is where Elisa’s sexuality is tested. Elisa’s first reaction to the tinker is similar to that of a man’s, “for she resists giving him work” (Marcus 56). She show strong qualities as she tells the tinker she as no work for him. The tinker begins to weaken Elisa, though, and eventually breaks her strong stance by using her pride and joy - her chrysanthemums. The tinker captures the beauty of the chrysanthemums in a poetic, feminine nature. He describes them as a “quick puff of colored smoke,” which appeals to Elisa’s feminine side. Suddenly, Elisa begins to unveil her womanliness. She tears off her hat and shakes out her “dark pretty hair” (Steinbeck 224). By being interested in Elisa’s feminine flowers, the tinker makes Elisa comfortable with her sexuality. Allowing her feminine nature to appear, Elisa becomes emotional vulnerable during the “business” transaction involving her chrysanthemums. This is

In the beginning of the short story, Stein presents a gloomy setting of a high gray-flannel fog of winter that closes off the Salinas Valley from the sky and the rest of the world, but among the bleak skies, there is a field that seems to be bathed in pale cold sunshine and a thick willow scrub along the river flamed with sharp and positive yellow leaves (358). The yellow color contrast represents hope within Elisa who is enclosed behind a fence cutting the stems of her Chrysanthemums in her garden. The fence suggests entrapment, and one could infer the lack of children has made Elisa look to the garden to procreate. The softer side of what a mother is is reflected in her Chrysanthemums. Originally, the chrysanthemum stalks suggest phalluses, possibly her husband’s, and later suggesting procreation when transferring them within the garden.

In John Steinbeck’s “Chrysanthemums” multiple hidden meanings and messages are placed in the story. Steinbeck roots underlying themes and symbols throughout the story. The short story is about a day in the life of a young woman, Elisa, who grows chrysanthemums. Steinbeck shows how women are portrayed in society through Elisa and the way she is treated. The ranch where Elisa lives is an allegory for society’s view of women, on the ranch, Elisa is not included in business affairs and despite her being a strong, smart woman she is not considered. Elisa represents women and how they are not treated and looked at the same way as men are, they are deemed unsuited for numerous things despite being entirely capable of it.

"The Chrysanthemums," written by John Steinbeck, captures one day in the life of a woman who yearns for a more fulfilling life. Elisa is first portrayed as a woman whose tasks are exceeded by her abilities. As the day continues, a stranger briefly enters her life and, through manipulative words, fills her heart with hopes of change and excitement. We learn that these newly-found hopes are crushed when Elisa eventually realizes that she has been used. A stranger manages to break Elisa's heart, not because of who Elisa appears to be, but because of who Elisa really is. To understand "The Chrysanthemums," we must first know the "real" Elisa.

The peddler is an especially important figure in this story and represents the kind of life Elisa Allen would like to experience. He is described as a big, bearded and greying man with an attractive presence, whose eyes are dark and full of brooding. He lives his life on the road, traveling the country and making what little money he can from his loyal customers by fixing their pots and knives. After entering Elisa's yard, he repeatedly asks if she has anything he can fix. She refuses him a job and becomes very irritated, “The irritation and resistance melted from Elisa’s face” (263). But when the peddler admires her flowers, she “grew eager and alert" (263), and feels like he admires her. “She tears off the battered hat and shook out her dark pretty hair” (263). She decides to allow the peddler into her world by giving him some sprouts of chrysanthemums in a pot for the "customer" that he claims is interested in chrysanthemums. By giving him the sprouts, she gives him the symbol of her inner-self. Her enthusiasm for her flowers is a very feministic characteristic. She gives the peddler a job and he leaves. The fact that others might be interested in her passion for gardening gives her the idea that she may have a distinct

"The Chrysanthemums" introduces us to Elisa Allen, a woman who knows she has a gift for things, but can't make more use of it than to grow her chrysanthemums. She is trapped in the Salinas Valley, where winter's fog sits "like a lid...and [makes] the great valley a closed pot." Her human nature has made her complacent in ordinary life, but the short glimmers of hope offered by her flowers and a passing stranger reveal that there is more to Elisa than her garden. Her environment may be keeping her inside her small garden, but inside her heart there is a longing for more.

The Chrysanthemums” is symbolic of a society that has no place for intelligent women. Elisa is smart, energetic, attractive, and determined. Unfortunately, due to her gender, all these qualities go to waste. Although, the two key men in the story are less interesting and talented than Elisa, their lives are far more fulfilling and busy. Henry is not as intelligent as Elisa, but he who runs the ranch, supports himself and his wife, and makes business deals. All Elisa can do is watch him as he performs his job. Whatever information she gets about the management of the ranch comes secondarily from Henry, who speaks only in unclear, arrogant terms instead of treating his wife as an equal partner. The tinker seems brighter than Henry but doesn’t

Elisa is thirty-five, she is very energetic and passion of her gardening. Her husband Henry seems supportive to her work, and praises her skill in gardening. Everything is normal until the man, who is not named in the story, interrupts the silence. The man is attracted to the chrysanthemum stalks and seedlings, and his attention to the flower caught Elisa’s interest. From Elisa’s change of attitude, we can see how she envies the man’s life on the road, and she is attracted to him because of his understanding. But when the story reaches to the end, Elisa sees how the man has abandoned the pots of flowers on the side of the road, she cried with a broken heart “She turned up her coat collar so he could not see that she was crying weakly – like an old woman” (Steinbeck 123). This is dramatic, but reveals the naturalism applied to Elisa, her environment and social conditions. The naturalism is seen as Elisa tries to get herself involved with the environment and society that she is separated from. But nature only provides her with a sense of success with

In Steinbeck’s, “The Chrysanthemums,” Elisa is a woman in her thirties who nurtures her chrysanthemums as her husband works out in the world. She yearns for a connection, as she eagerly plants and engages in a conversation with an unknown tinker. As she converses with the tinker, notice how she becomes a strong and vibrant woman, as she passionately becomes one with nature. Both her husband and tinker attempt to put her in “place,” based on society’s view of women (Skredsvig). Feeling overwhelmed with her emotions, she begins to realize her role as a woman in the household and attempts to break free. Based on the sources that were synthesized, one may agree that Steinbeck’s criticism of gender roles uses the ecofeminist approach through the nurturing of the chrysanthemums.

John Steinbeck, in “The Chrysanthemums” expresses the theme through the use of symbols. The events in “The Chrysanthemums” take place in the Salinas Valley and focuses on Elisa Allen, her loneliness, and her attempt to communicate with others. In this story, Steinbeck uses various symbols to express the theme, which states that true communication must flow in both directions. The most important symbol in the story, the chrysanthemum, strongly expresses the theme as it represents the story as a whole. Additionally, the specific characteristics of the flower themselves symbolize different events in the story.

The chrysanthemums symbolize both Elisa and the limited scope of her life. Like Elisa, the chrysanthemums are lovely, strong, and thriving. Their flowerbed, like Elisa’s house, is tidy and scrupulously ordered. Elisa explicitly identifies herself with the flowers, even saying that she becomes one with the plants when she tends to them. When the tinker notices the chrysanthemums, Elisa visibly brightens, just as if he had noticed her instead. She offers the chrysanthemums to him at the same time she offers herself, both of which he ignores and tosses aside. His rejection of the flowers also mimics the way society has rejected women as nothing more than mothers and housekeepers. Just like her, the flowers are unobjectionable and also unimportant: both are merely decorative and add little value to the world.

The air was cold and tender. A light wind blew up from the southwest so that the farmers were mildly hopeful of a good rain before long; but fog and rain do not go together."(Steinback 267) From this line much may be derived about Elisa Smith's character. The quiet waiting symbolizes how Elisa is silently waiting for something to happen. Elisa can not say much about her current situation, she has to calmly weight for something to happen. This can be seen when her husband jokes about her going to the fights with her. At the time she says nothing, because it would be absurd for her to go with him. However, after she grows up at the end of the story she expresses her interest to go with him. The symbol of the possibly of rain shows how Elisa anticipates that something interesting in her life may happen, but deep down she knows that there is a very low probability that anything would actually happen. Elisa's bath is another good symbol that Steinback uses to develop Elisa's character. When she, "scrubbed herself with a little block of pumice. . . until her skin was scratched and red."(Steinback 273) she was scrubbing away the skin that bound her into her conventional role. After this bath she had the courage to ask henry if they could have wine at the dinner tonight, and that they may possibly go to the fights together. After her bath she realized how strong she