Preview

Elisa's Power In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
661 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Elisa's Power In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck
In John Steinbeck’s story “The Chrysanthemums” the main character Elisa is in the garden wearing men’s clothing; her appearance made her seem strong. "Her face was lean and strong and her eyes were as clear as water"(Steinbeck 226). Elisa has a strong self-confident attitude in the beginning of the story before meeting the pot fixer, and by the end of the story she lacks confidence and feels like she is losing control. In the beginning, Elisa likes the power she has over the chrysanthemums. The author implies that she uses more power than she needs over the helpless chrysanthemums. "She was cutting down the old years chrysanthemums stalks with a pair of short and powerful scissors... even her work with the scissors was over-eager, over-powerful. The Chrysanthemums stems seemed too small and easy for her energy"(Steinbeck 227). Elisa’s use of the powerful scissors shows her power and control over the chrysanthemums, which allows the reader to see her strong confidence.
Also, …show more content…
At this point the reader starts to sense Elisa’s loss of confidence. Elisa was resistant to the pot fixer at first, but when the Pot fixer asked Elisa what her plants were, she could not resist his selling technique. “The irritation and resistance melted from Elisa’s face.”(Steinbeck 229). Elisa became weak when the pot fixer asked about her chrysanthemums. At first she was resistant to him, but the Chrysanthemums now had power over her.

Although Elisa tries to resist the pot fixer, she lets his tactics get the best of her when he continues to talk about her chrysanthemums. She gives in and finds work for him that she does not need really need done. “At the back of the house she dug in the can pile and fund two old and battered aluminum saucepans… ‘Here, maybe you can fix these’” (Steinbeck 231). At this point Elisa has lost control, and the situation is out of her
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    A Pair Of Silk Stockings And The Chrysanthemums Analysis
    • 1602 Words
    • 7 Pages

    A Pair Of Silk Stockings And The Chrysanthemums Analysis

    Elisa is thirty-five and strong, she has a passion for her gardening and tends to the Chrysanthemums on the farm. She is usually left out of business deals and her husband doesn’t necessarily allow her to help out with the orchard. One day a man advertising his services as a tinker who repairs pots and pans rolls along down the road. He stops and asks Elisa if he can be any service to her but she is confident in her abilities and replies with a no, although she is interested in his adventurous journey and his way of business. The tinker quickly says, “It ain’t the right kind of a life for a woman” when Elisa shows an interest in his way of life. She finds this very demeaning but is quickly distracted when the tinker asks about her Chrysanthemums. Unfortunately, he only does this to trick her into giving him work to do. After Elisa pays him and gives him a pot full of dirt and Chrysanthemums to give to another customer of his, he heads out. Elisa and her husband have plans set later to go out to dinner, although Elisa has other ideas in mind. She curiously asks her husband if women go to the fights but again she is let down when he responds, “Oh, sure, some. What’s the matter, Elisa? Do you want to go? I don’t think you’d like it, but I’ll take you if you really want to go” (Steinbeck 5). From what I can tell the author sends the…

    • 1602 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Comparing The Chrysanthemums And Shiloh
    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Comparing The Chrysanthemums And Shiloh

    Norma Jean is very independent, lifts weights and tries to educate herself. Both Elisa's husband and her mom do not agree with her choices about the new things she's trying. On page 575 it says, “Something is happening. Norma Jean is going to night school... She spends her evenings out-lining paragraphs” (Mason 575). She starts a English Comp class and it symbolizes her not only trying to educate herself but also re-writing her life. Both characters become more independent while their husband’s are at work. Norma Jean starts feeling trapped, and feels a loss of freedom with her husband home, and mom pushing into her personal life. The more they try to change Norma’s life, the more she gets uneasy with them. At the end of The Chrysanthemums, Elisa notices her flowers that she gave on the side of the…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Elisa's Point Of View In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck
    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Elisa's Point Of View In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck

    In the short story, “The Chrysanthemums” John Steinbeck tells the story of Elisa Allen living on a ranch in the Salinas Valley with her husband Henry. Elisa is a thirty-five year-old house wife that takes pride in growing chrysanthemums. One day while cutting down last year’s chrysanthemums her husband tells her that he has just sold thirty cattle and is going to take her out to dinner and a movie. After that, a traveling tinker stops by her house and offers to fix any pots or sharpen any knives. After a conversation with the tinker, Elisa figures out for herself that she doesn’t get to express herself very much. Elisa eventually finds something for the tinker to fix and even gives him a chrysanthemum plant for one of his other customers. She later sees that the tinker threw the plant out and that she is unsatisfied with her marriage. “The Chrysanthemums” is told in the third person point of view, but the narration is presented almost entirely from Elisa’s point of view forcing us to try and understand Elisa just as the other characters in the story do.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Elisa Allen: a Mystified Identity
    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Elisa Allen: a Mystified Identity

    John Steinbeck's short story "The Chrysanthemums" is centered on the protagonist named Elisa Allen. The vivid portrayal of her character in different parts of the story makes the reader wonder who she really is. Steinbeck started by portraying her as a strong and knowledgeable gardener, with a sense of masculinity, following which she is portrayed as someone who yearns for sexual attention in her sensual encounter with the tinker, and concluded with her being described as a beautiful, feminine lady, and then back to her masculine self all within a span of a few hours. The evolution in the expressions, emotions, and the portrayal of Elisa Allen is an important element of Steinbeck’s “The Chyrsanthemums.”…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Women In The Chrysanthemums
    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Women In The Chrysanthemums

    In many ways the roles of woman were just kept as being housewives or mothers in charge of managing the children while the men tended to the fields or to the factories to provide for their families. And both Hemingway and Steinbeck tend to portray woman similarly, for example it can be seen in “The Chrysanthemums” and “Hills like white Elephant”. In the short story “The Chrysanthemums” the main protagonist Elisa was shown at the beginning of the story tending to her garden as a man in a wagon came upon her farm. At first she was irritated by the man but when he asked about the Chrysanthemums she was…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Literary Criticism of John Steinbeck's the Chysanthemums
    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Literary Criticism of John Steinbeck's the Chysanthemums

    One morning an energetic housewife named Elisa Henry is working busily in her garden, watching in secret interest as her husband sells cattle to another man. When a peddler drives up to her gate, she is intrigued by the peddler's lifestyle. She talks to him and he mentions chrysanthemums, and she eagerly gives him a few chrysanthemums in a bright new pot. She gives him some pots to fix and they talk about his life. When he goes on his way, she feels decidedly more powerful. She cleans and dresses herself for a date with her husband. When they are driving on the road she sees a spot that she knows must be her discarded chrysanthemum gift. She then resigns to being her old self and weeps like an old woman.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    How Does John Steinbeck Create Tension In The Chrysanthemums
    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages

    How Does John Steinbeck Create Tension In The Chrysanthemums

    She enters the house to freshen up before going out to dinner with Henry. She puts on her finest outfit, "which was the symbol of her prettiness". This also, is a symbol of her femininity. Henry sees her and is stunned by her beauty and femininity. He says, "You look so nice!" She tenses up and asks for what he means by it, his definition of nice. He goes on to say, "I don't know. I mean you look different, strong and happy." She is eyes widely interested in this and asks "What do you mean 'strong'?". He is taken aback by her response. Henry was just trying to compliment her and she still would not allow him to enter her heart, almost as if he has offended her with his praise. As they continue their way to dinner, Elisa discovers something quite tragic to her. She sees her treasured chrysanthemums discarded on the side of the road as if a pile of unimportant garbage. She is distraught at the sight of them lying there mercilessly. She is brought to tears as she realizes that they surely mean nothing- symbolic to her self-worth. The repairman had only saved the pot, which was of far more value to him. The poor flowers are left to wilt and die, unable to survive on the side of the road. Sadly, that is such the case of her identity. She pulls up her coat collar to hide her tears, in which she cries; handling the situation with the weakness of a woman, rather than the strength of a male. Her strength has no match now. She will always be a female at the root no matter how strong it appears…

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Does Steinbeck Use Gender Stereotypes In The Chrysanthemums
    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Does Steinbeck Use Gender Stereotypes In The Chrysanthemums

    through his characters; Elisa, Henry, and the tinker. The story takes place in a later time when woman did not have many rights. Elisa would stay at home to clean, cook, get the clothing together and prepare the bath ready each day for her husband while Henry left home to tend to his working duties. In many ways Elisa's jobs have stuck with woman to this day. In our society woman have more right. Both, men and woman, work all day and come home to sometimes work even more. However, even though the woman has been working just as hard some men come home expecting food to…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Lizabeth's Innocence In Marigolds By Eugenia W. Collier
    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Lizabeth's Innocence In Marigolds By Eugenia W. Collier

    In the short story, “Marigolds” by Eugenia W. Collier, the protagonist, Lizabeth learns a very big life lesson that has been conflicting within herself during adolescence because she discovers the value of compassion and hope. In the beginning of the story, Lizabeth’s innocence makes her infantile to the real world. As she realizes how complex people are, she becomes paralyzed and wants to escape from the circumstance that she is facing right now. At the end of the story, Lizabeth experiences a “painful poignancy” because she wants to go back and change the past; however, she could not, so she empathizes with Miss Lottie and is still wistful to the action that she did every single time (5). The regret that Lizabeth feels after destroying the…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Chrysanthemums Literary Analysis
    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Chrysanthemums Literary Analysis

    She isn’t gentle with flowers, instead using scissors to “destroy the pests.” Elisa also cleans the house from top to bottom, with “hard-polished windows” and a “clean mud mat on the front steps.” Elisa conforms to her feminine obligations but isn’t as feminine and gentle as she is expected to be. Elisa’s husband, Henry, also believes in those feminine roles she’s expected to fulfill. He notes how she has a “gift with things” but it only “works on flowers.” He also ends the conversation and dismisses her when he goes on to speak to some men about business matters. Henry doesn’t think that it’s right for a woman to be involved in business and should only be a housewife. Later on, Elisa asks her husband about the fights in town when driving, and he stops the car, surprised that she read about them. The other main character, the tinkerer, also believes Elisa shouldn’t do things usually reserved for men. When he tells her about how he sleeps in a wagon and constantly travels,…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Oppression In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck
    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Oppression In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck

    After searching for a window into her soul, he spotted the chrysanthemums. ”What’s them plants, ma’am?” Elisa was as vulnerable as her chrysanthemums and the exasperation from the man’s annoyance quickly melted away from her handsome face. He had unlocked the door to her soul and it gave up her secrets. She was proud of her chrysanthemums and knew that she grew the largest and prettiest chrysanthemums for miles around, last year they had ten-inch…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Help Celia Foote Quotes
    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Help Celia Foote Quotes

    Largely due to Minny’s help, Celia moves past her negative feelings that resulted from the dispute with Hilly at the Benefit. Minny told Celia about the chocolate pie story, which gave Celia the idea to write a particular note to Hilly herself. Since she ripped Hilly’s dress, Celia was told to write a $200 check in return, so she wrote it to “Two Sliced Hilly” (402). The note was supposed to be an insulting joke towards Hilly, and it shows that Celia has gained confidence after reevaluating her true values in life. She came to a realization that her self-consciousness and negative feelings should not be a result of Hilly’s meaningless words and actions. Furthermore, Celia finally took action and accomplished something that she has put off for so long. “Leaves and dead fronds fly through the air” (402), as Celia began chopping away at the mimosa tree. This particular event showcases Celia as an independent individual that is letting go of all the negativity that has been holding her back. Celia concluded that her self-worth should not be based on how others view her. Now content with her true character, Celia no longer depends on other’s opinions to fulfill her…

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Oppression In 'The Chrysanthemums'
    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page

    Oppression In 'The Chrysanthemums'

    IN the beginning of the story ELisa is greeted by a man in a car who says he fixes pots and pans. He offers to fis her pans to no avail. Elisa gives him Chrysanthemum buds to deliver to a woman he claimed wants to grow some of her own. Once she's comfortable, she lets him fix a coulple of her pans for 50…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Who Is John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums: Gender Criticism
    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Who Is John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums: Gender Criticism

    While on the way to dinner with her husband Elisa finally realizes that she had been taken advantage of. She sees that the handy man has discarded her beloved chrysanthemums in the ditch on the side of the road. She realizes that the man used flattery of her and her flowers to get work. This realization makes her break down and cry. She then understands that she is doomed to her current role in society, a passive woman, and she hates it.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck Analysis
    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck Analysis

    Throughout the ages women have been confined to the role of a family wife. Being born a women already gave you a set job to do for the rest of a girl's life. In the Story “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck, Elisa lives a hopeful life until is goes through a downward spiral as she faces the hard truth of the world around her.…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics