Loneliness And Confinement In The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck was a free-lance writer from California who became well known after his first published story in 1935. In his story The Chrysanthemums Steinbeck, uses the theme of loneliness and confinement. The main character Elisa Allen is mainly focused on her garden of chrysanthemums will her husband is unaware of the changes she is going through while he sits next to her. He used imagery to reinforce his theme of loneliness and confinement by giving a detailed look on the valley and the characters. First Steinbeck uses the valley to descried Elias emotional part of life. The text states “that The high gray-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world.,” (Steinbeck line1) which he
is referring to how Elias is away from everyone and her world “is like a closed pot,” (Steinbeck line 3) only dealing with her garden away from the world. The valley is associated with Elias inner life that is filled with hope and happiness, but her outer life is unhappy, claustrophobic, and unable to grow. Steinbeck description of the valley optimism is that they hope to became full of life once again, but are left waiting for the change.
On the other hand, he uses Elias and Henry (her husband) house to descried how hard working Elias. He refers to the house as “a neat white farm house with red geraniums 2 close-banked around it as high as the windows. It was a hard-swept looking little house, with hard-polished windows, and a clean mud-mat on the front steps.” (Steinbeck line 29-31) once can infer that because she can keep a tidy home her relationship with her husband is lacking romance and passion. Also by her being able to keep a spruceness house leads us to believe she is erupting with inhibit anger.
Although, Steinbeck only has three main characters they all pay a major part in his story. One of the characters is The Tinker, to Elias he is smart, and exciting but Steinbeck makes the reader wonder if he really does have common qualities as her or not because he flirts and manipulates her just to sale his services for fixing kitchen utensils. Another character is Henry Allen in this story he represents society as a whole because he is unaware of how clever his wife is and how she can help with his business. Henry is the acme of how society is unable to treat women as equals. Elias herself is a clever and wistful person but is unsatisfied about her life because her husband turns her down when she has input for the business , she is attracted to the tinker because he stops wanting to talk to her instead of her husband in which she latter loose interest because he uses her to sell his services.
In conclusion, Steinbeck writes about how women are not treated as equals. His characters are based on how society sees woman’s and the way Elias had to deal with the injustice. Elias was trapped in her own home and became lonely and confide, with only a hint of happiness when gardening her chrysanthemums.
is referring to how Elias is away from everyone and her world “is like a closed pot,” (Steinbeck line 3) only dealing with her garden away from the world. The valley is associated with Elias inner life that is filled with hope and happiness, but her outer life is unhappy, claustrophobic, and unable to grow. Steinbeck description of the valley optimism is that they hope to became full of life once again, but are left waiting for the change.
On the other hand, he uses Elias and Henry (her husband) house to descried how hard working Elias. He refers to the house as “a neat white farm house with red geraniums 2 close-banked around it as high as the windows. It was a hard-swept looking little house, with hard-polished windows, and a clean mud-mat on the front steps.” (Steinbeck line 29-31) once can infer that because she can keep a tidy home her relationship with her husband is lacking romance and passion. Also by her being able to keep a spruceness house leads us to believe she is erupting with inhibit anger.
Although, Steinbeck only has three main characters they all pay a major part in his story. One of the characters is The Tinker, to Elias he is smart, and exciting but Steinbeck makes the reader wonder if he really does have common qualities as her or not because he flirts and manipulates her just to sale his services for fixing kitchen utensils. Another character is Henry Allen in this story he represents society as a whole because he is unaware of how clever his wife is and how she can help with his business. Henry is the acme of how society is unable to treat women as equals. Elias herself is a clever and wistful person but is unsatisfied about her life because her husband turns her down when she has input for the business , she is attracted to the tinker because he stops wanting to talk to her instead of her husband in which she latter loose interest because he uses her to sell his services.
In conclusion, Steinbeck writes about how women are not treated as equals. His characters are based on how society sees woman’s and the way Elias had to deal with the injustice. Elias was trapped in her own home and became lonely and confide, with only a hint of happiness when gardening her chrysanthemums.