The Chrysanthemums Essay

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The Chrysanthemums By Alysia Panko Instructor Shelia Seifert “The Chrysanthemums” is a good depiction of most marriages in the early 1900’s, the husband goes out and makes the money and the wife has to stay home and take care of the house and if they have children take care of them Elisa and Henry do not have children so she just takes care of the house. The setting of the story “The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and the rest of the world” (Steinbeck 1938 p 375). This tells the reader what the scene is so they can get an image in their mind of where the story takes place. However, it is not until the middle of the story that the reader begins to notice Elisa’s true heartache and that she wants to be noticed as her own woman Elisa, is a housewife and is thirty five years of age. She loves to grow chrysanthemums. Henry thinks she has a good hand for planting he tells her what a strong crop she has and seems very proud “You’ve got a gift with things,” Henry observed. “Some of those yellow chrysanthemums you had this year were ten inches across. I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.”(Steinbeck 1938 p. 376). “Elisa has no children and her maternal instincts are shown through growing her chrysanthemums as well as other flowers. Even with the flowers and plants it still does not fill the void she has from her husband not understanding her or showing much affection toward her. Elisa has her own soul and seems like a pretty simple person she allows what her husband says and his thoughts dominate her she use’s the chrysanthemums to fulfill what she does not get from her marriage.. Henry Allen your typical male with his thoughts and how he thinks things should be “And I thought,” he continued, “I thought how it’s Saturday afternoon, and we might go into

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