The Symbolic Use of the Chrysanthemums - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

The short story "Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck talks about the place of women in society. Through symbolism, the author has depicted the life of a typical woman in a male-dominated society who tries to attract attention in vain. Even with her hardworking nature, this woman will always remain irrelevant because of her gender. Elisa is strong and proud but always frustrated with life because she cannot get the experience she wants. Elisa cannot have a child because her husband does not admire her romantically, even with her attempts to look beautiful. To get rid of her frustrations and disappointments, this is woman devotes all her life tending to her flower garden, which becomes the only source of happiness. By cultivating her beautiful chrysanthemums, the woman finds a reason to live. The writer, John Steinbeck, uses chrysanthemums symbolically to represent the inner self of Elisa and women in general.

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Potential Harm

First, Chrysanthemum symbolizes the children that Elisa cannot have. The woman takes care of her garden the way she would her children. She handles these flowers with a lot of tenderness and cares for them so that nothing terrible gets to affect them. She becomes very protective of her flowers because she wants nothing wrong to happen to them by ensuring that there are no weeds or worms. John Steinbeck writes that this woman always endeavored to see that her flowers remained healthy. He writes, "no aphids, no sowbugs or snails or cutworms …Her terrier fingers destroy such pests before they can get started" (Steinbeck 240). It would therefore be imperative to say that the pests that Elisa dreads symbolize any potential harm that may come to the flowers. Elisa is a good mother who always attempts to remove these tests before they would affect the flowers, just like a woman would protect her children from any harm. She had so much to be a mother and the flowers of her a chance to practice that. She loves flowers like her children, and she would never let anything happen to them. At one point, her husband is very proud of her and compliments about her flowers when he says she is very proud, and her face is always happy. "On her face there [is] a little smugness"( Steinbeck 240). She became so pleased that there is something at least she can do that she can be proud of. She becomes so proud of the ability to tend for flowers and make them as beautiful as they can be. Through these examples, it is, therefore, confirmed that the flowers symbolize children that this woman has never had and the fact that she tenders for them so caringly she practices her motherly nature.

Femininity

Secondly, chrysanthemums symbolize Alana's femininity and sexuality. Even that this woman cannot have children of her own, she is not oblivious of the fact that she is a female with her sexual desires. Femininity comes about whether her nature wants to care for the flowers as though they were her children.no matter how beautiful, this woman tries to look at her husband and never admires her beyond just a housemate. Elisa feels that her husband does not appreciate her more is a woman with desires, which makes her antagonistic when it comes to the way he treats her husband. She resents her husband because she knows there are some responsibilities that he has not been able to perform. However, Henry cannot see his shortcomings, and this woman never lets him point them out. Elisa, therefore, has to devote all her life to telling her flowers because they gave her a sense of belonging and identify the high weather her femininity, which her marriage failed to offer. Were it not for the flowers, this woman who would have broken down long ago, but the flowers have delivered her a place to take all her anger and anguish for not being recognized as a woman in the household. Because her husband ignores her when it comes to her sexuality, their house has no harmony. Elisa is not contented with her husband. At one point, Henry observes her beautiful flowers and says, "I wish you'd work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big" (Steinbeck 240). This shows that Henry cannot understand the needs of her wife and how vulnerable she is. The reason is she devotes all her energy to the name for flowers. It is not her wish. She saves all her time in her flower garden because she has nothing more to do. After all, her husband cannot give her children for her to take care of. Henry cannot understand what the impact of a wife meeting with the tinker had on her. This encounter indicates that this woman has so many animated desires as far as her sexuality is concerned. Even if she loves her flowers so much, they cannot offer her such satisfaction, but only her husband would. The tinker describes her flowers romantically by asserting "quick puff of colored smoke"( Steinbeck 243). It was an indirect way of admiring this woman.

Failure

The chrysanthemums symbolized Elisa's femininity and sexuality. She "tears off the battered hat and shakes out her pretty dark hair"( Steinbeck 243). At this point, she has to let her miss clean but take the better of her because her femininity had failed miserably. The thinker office Elisa a red flower pot with chrysanthemums anytime, which catalyzes her life. The flowerpot represented Elisa's inner self because she starts feeling hope that maybe someday her husband will begin seeing her the way she wanted. After the tinker leaves, she becomes more optimistic about her marriage and hopes for a new direction and beginning. She prepares for a more fulfilling life all because of the pot of chrysanthemums flowers that he had given her.

Turning Point

Lastly, the flowers that the tinker gives Elisa becomes a turning point in her life. She "with a little block of pumice, legs, and thighs, loins and chest and arms, until her skin was scratched and red"( Steinbeck 245). These flowers had so much impact on this woman's life that she had to scrub off her former self to start a brand new life with her husband. She dresses to arouse her husband's sexual desires that day after taking so much time in the shower. She wears seductive stockings and a beautiful dress and applies some makeup to attract her husband. She hopes that this time around, her husband gives her the attention that she deserves in the house is a woman with sexual desires. However, this does not come to pass because her husband does not see her beyond how he sees her flowers. Henry also compliments her beauty by saying, "You look strong enough to break a calf over your knee, happy enough to eat it like a watermelon" (Steinbeck 246).

This remark is so devastated, especially to a woman who has devoted all her energy to look attractive with a beard too get her husband to make love to her. He uses masculine terms to describe her beauty, and this breaks her into pieces dashing her hopes. When she looks across the road and sees her flower scattered there, she even becomes more frustrated that even the tinker has no even tiniest respect for her femininity because the flowers represented her soul, which he had treated with jest. It is, therefore, confirmed that no one, no man, will ever understand this woman's femininity and sexuality, and she will have to carry this close to the end of her life, which is so hard to bear. She has to teach herself to be content with her life the way it was, and this leaves her "crying weakly-like an old woman"( Steinbeck 247).

Conclusion

It is indeed true that John Steinbeck has used the chrysanthemums flowers symbolically to represent Elisa's life. It is the flowers that give this woman a chance to be a mother, which can be seen through her caring nature. The flowers offer this woman a chance to be a mother as a system exam the children that she has never had. The flowers are also a representation of her female sexuality if it can be inferred from her encounter with the thinker.

Thus, chrysanthemums symbolize Elisa's role as a woman. First, they represent her children, femininity, and sexuality. Elisa feels frustrated with her life because children and romance are missing in her marriage with Henry. Further, her husband fails to appreciate her womanly qualities and her emotional needs. The encounter with the tinker reawakens her sexuality. It brings hope to Elisa for a more exciting and romantic marriage, but her realization that her life is not going to change is crystallized when she sees the flowers thrown on the road. It devastates her ultimately to have to settle for such an unfulfilling life.

Work Cited

Steinbeck, John. The Chrysanthemums.Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1995. 239-47.

McMahan, Elizabeth E. "" The Chrysanthemums": Study of a Woman's Sexuality." Modern Fiction Studies 14.4 (1968): 453-458.

Thomas, Leroy. "Steinbeck's the Chrysanthemums." The Explicator 45.3 (1987): 50-51.

Sweet, Charles A. "Ms. Elisa Allen and Steinbeck's" The Chrysanthemums"." Modern Fiction Studies 20.2 (1974): 210-214.