An Analysis Of John Steinbeck's 'The Chrysanthemums'
A Woman’s Frustration in the Gender-Divided World
--An Analysis of Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”
In his 1933 letter to a friend, John Steinbeck talks about his newly composed short story “The Chrysanthemums”: “It is entirely different and is designed to strike without the reader’s knowledge” (qtd. in Segal 214). It has indeed achieved the effect: ever since its publication, critics and readers, who unanimously “feel that something profound has happened to him” (qtd. in Segal 214), try in each way to figure out under and between the lines the theme of the story. While generally interpreting the tale as one about a woman’s frustration, critics put forward different reasons to explain the “what” and the “how." Some critics relate the protagonist …show more content…
However, they haven’t exhausted the complexity of the theme yet. If we approach the story by a close reading, taking adequate notice of the images and symbols which Steinbeck has carefully woven into the story, we may find that “The Chrysanthemums” is also a “profound” tale of “gender”, a story of the doomed frustration of a female who, in her attempt at self-fulfillment, unwittingly and yet inevitably “trespasses upon” the world branded as belonging to male …show more content…
No. I don’t want to go. I’m sure I don’t” (177). She has no courage to venture any further into man’s world now. “It will be enough if we can have wine. It will be plenty” (177). From “gardening” to “wine”, that’s the farthest way Elisa could go. Gardening, which is usually a female job but also occasionally attempted by men, can be done by Elisa with a tint of so-called “masculinity”; wine, which is a drink usually for a man, but is also allowed for a woman, can be drunk by Elisa without the danger of raising brows from the society. Elisa has been venting her repressed energy and emotion through planting chrysanthemums, and now she can only resort to the wine to quench her frustrated aspiration and to solace her bruised self-esteem. Elisa “was crying weakly—like an old woman” (177). She is a withered chrysanthemum
--An Analysis of Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”
In his 1933 letter to a friend, John Steinbeck talks about his newly composed short story “The Chrysanthemums”: “It is entirely different and is designed to strike without the reader’s knowledge” (qtd. in Segal 214). It has indeed achieved the effect: ever since its publication, critics and readers, who unanimously “feel that something profound has happened to him” (qtd. in Segal 214), try in each way to figure out under and between the lines the theme of the story. While generally interpreting the tale as one about a woman’s frustration, critics put forward different reasons to explain the “what” and the “how." Some critics relate the protagonist …show more content…
However, they haven’t exhausted the complexity of the theme yet. If we approach the story by a close reading, taking adequate notice of the images and symbols which Steinbeck has carefully woven into the story, we may find that “The Chrysanthemums” is also a “profound” tale of “gender”, a story of the doomed frustration of a female who, in her attempt at self-fulfillment, unwittingly and yet inevitably “trespasses upon” the world branded as belonging to male …show more content…
No. I don’t want to go. I’m sure I don’t” (177). She has no courage to venture any further into man’s world now. “It will be enough if we can have wine. It will be plenty” (177). From “gardening” to “wine”, that’s the farthest way Elisa could go. Gardening, which is usually a female job but also occasionally attempted by men, can be done by Elisa with a tint of so-called “masculinity”; wine, which is a drink usually for a man, but is also allowed for a woman, can be drunk by Elisa without the danger of raising brows from the society. Elisa has been venting her repressed energy and emotion through planting chrysanthemums, and now she can only resort to the wine to quench her frustrated aspiration and to solace her bruised self-esteem. Elisa “was crying weakly—like an old woman” (177). She is a withered chrysanthemum