Chrysanthemums
The society of the United States is, and has always been, one that is highly and heavily patriarchal. Males are the gender that is in charge and women are expected and indeed required to accept this as fact. Their gender necessitates submission and dominion by their male counterparts. Women who strive for power in this society are meant to feel as though they are somehow very wrong because they want something that is supposed to be allowed only to the opposite gender. A woman was always made subordinate to her husband. This is the case at the center of the marriage between Henry and Elisa Allen. Throughout their union, he has been the lead and she has followed him, like a proper dutiful housewife should. At the age of 35, she has little life to call her own; no children and no power in the union. All she has are her chrysanthemums which she takes very special care of. The chrysanthemums are far more important than an everyday garden plant. They serve as the crux of Elisa's very identity and her self-assurance both as a woman and as an individual person potentially capable of complete self-reliance.
When the reader first meets Elisa Allen, they learn that she is relatively young, only thirty five years old. Very few would classify her as old and yet she has been hardened by a difficult life. She has lived on the farm at least since the start of her marriage and has had very few luxuries in her life. This is why the promise of a film and a nice dinner with husband where she gets to have the extravagance of drinking alcohol gives her such pleasure. She has very little to live for outside of these infrequent entertainments. In the article "The Real Woman Inside the Fence in 'The Chrysanthemums,'" Stanley Renner writes that Elisa Allen is "a strong, capable woman kept from personal, social, and sexual fulfillment by the prevailing conception of a woman's role in a world dominated by men" (306). Elisa Allen has been marginalized by her society and fenced in by her marriage, physically and socially unable to exist outside of the boundaries that her husband and his patriarchal power allow her.
It seems that these flowers are all in life that she does care for. So, when one day a handsome and charismatic salesman convinces her to purchase a pot and also to give him some of the cuttings of her precious flowers, she feels elated and strong, a healthy and vibrant and sexually viable creature again. Of course, this self possession and new confidence fades when she and her husband drive towards town only to find that the salesman has thrown her chrysanthemums, the only thing in her life which has preciousness to her, to the grown to be crushed and destroyed by oncoming traffic. This is enough to break Elisa and at the end of the story, she is very much the same woman from the beginning. She has had a brush with strength and vitality which have been crushed by the impending destruction of her gift. Man's attention has given her strength and the factually of that attention, the reasons behind it, serve to objectify and subordinate the woman again.
In John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," the female character is extremely marginalized, from a physical, emotional, psychological, and economical position. Elisa Allen watches from a distance while her husband discusses business. Her husband Henry does not even approach her until his business transaction has been completed. He tells her, "I sold those thirty head of three-year-old steers. Got nearly my own price, too" (Steinbeck). Henry here is in charge of financial gain for the farm and the resulting financial stability for the family. While Elisa strains to take care of the chrysanthemums in her garden, Henry sells their cattle without even consulting her. The lines of duty are...
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