Elisa is a woman who lives in Salinas Valley all alone with just her husband as her company. She has no job other than to tend her garden and clean the house, which bores Elisa. One day a stranger shows up to the house wanting to find the path to Los Angeles Highway. Elisa is attracted to this man and how he treats her. She ends up giving him some of her chrysanthemums to give to a woman that is on her route. Later that day Elisa and her husband Henry are on their way to town and she see that her chrysanthemums have been thrown on the side of the rode, which hurts Elisa very much.
Journal
Elisa is the main character in this story. She is being oppressed not only by her husband, but also by society. The story takes place on Elisa and Henry’s farm in Salinas Valley, CA. Elisa is in her garden tending her flowers and most importantly her chrysanthemums. As she works John Steinbeck explains that, “her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume.” This perceives the thought that Elisa is real masculine and rigid as a woman. She doesn’t want to be seen this way but her work requires her to dress this way. Not only does she tend her garden she also cleans the house. Those are the only jobs that Elisa is ever given, and I think they bore her. This is just one way Elisa is oppressed in the story.
As that story continues Elisa see that’s her husband is talking to two men. She wonders why, but doesn’t dare go speak to them because that would be out of line in society. Henry comes over after the men leave to tell her that the men brought him money for the steers he sold, and he asks if she’d like to go out to dinner, Elisa agrees. Henry jokingly inquires they should go to the fights in town tonight, but he assumes that Elisa wouldn’t want to go to them. The reason he assumes this is because in the times of this story women didn’t go to fights, that wasn’t the womanly thing to do. This just shows how society too oppressed women in what they do. In other words women weren’t really free to do what they wanted because they were oppressed by the society, which were the men because other women wouldn’t make rules for other women.
The gender roles are stereotypical of this time period. The men were the workers who provided for the women, while the women cooked and cleaned all day. Although like Elisa women didn’t always like their roles they still did what they were suppose to do. Why is this? Why wouldn’t women want to change their lives by speaking out? Is it because they didn’t want to humiliate their self or their family by being different, or maybe that they never got the opportunity because the men were so controlling of the women.
This story showed strong feminism from society oppressing Elisa to Henry oppressing Elisa. Everything that was written was pretty much how men controlled everything. The only time that Elisa is a little bit flattered by a man is when the fixer guy comes by and he speaks to her with passion. At first she isn’t open to this because she’s not used to it. After awhile she sees how lovely this guy really is and how he respects her. He shows this respect by inquiring about her chrysanthemums, which mean lots to her. Since Elisa has never had children these flowers become her children in a sense.
In the end of the story Henry and Elisa are on their way into town for dinner. She sees that the fixer guy’s covered wagon is ahead. As they come upon the wagon she sees that he has thrown out the chrysanthemums that she gave him. Elisa breaks into tears not only about the flowers, but about the fact that she respected the fixer guy and how he acknowledged her as more than just a woman.
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