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Feminism in the chrysanthemums
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The animals in Yellow Wallpaper, Chrysanthemums, and Boys and Girls represents the characters and their characteristics. In Yellow Wallpaper John’s wife has postpartum depression. John is her physician but he doesn’t let her go out or do anything. She sits in a room that she hates and eventually escapes. Chrysanthemums is about a girl named Elisa and she loves to grow chrysanthemums. She meets this guy who is on the road all the time and he lives off of fixing broken pots and pans. Boys and Girls is about a family whose father takes the foxes fur and sells it for calendars. They get two horses named Mack and Flora who are going to potentially be used as horse meat. They don’t kill them instantly because at the time they had too much meat so they used them on the fields although Mack is lazy. They eventually kill both …show more content…
He also gets dinner by fixing old pots and pans they potentially would have thrown away. The donkey also represents the wagon being old and making noises. “A squeak of wheels and plod of hoofs came from the road. Elisa looked up. The country road ran along the dense bank of willows and cottonwoods that bordered the river, and up this road came a curious vehicle, curiously drawn. It was an old spring-wagon, with a round canvas top on it like the cover of a prairie schooner. It was drawn by an old bay horse and a little grey-and-white burro. A big stubble-bearded man sat between the cover flaps and drove the crawling team. Underneath the wagon, between the hind wheels, a lean and rangy mongrel dog walked sedately. Words were painted on the canvas in clumsy, crooked letters. "Pots, pans, knives, scissors, lawn mowers, Fixed." Two rows of articles, and the triumphantly definitive "Fixed" below. The black paint had run down in little sharp points beneath each letter.” (page 2, paragraph
As the narrator’s mental state changes so does the way she perceives things around the house. The most prominent example of this is the imagery of the wallpaper and the way the narrator’s opinion on the wallpaper slowly changes throughout the story; this directly reflects what is happening within the narrator’s mind. At the beginning of the story the narrator describes the wallpaper as “Repellent...revolting... a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). As the story continues the narrator starts to become obsessed with the wallpaper and her opinion of it has completely changed than that of hers from the beginning. Symbolism plays a big part in “The Yellow Wallpaper” too. This short story has a multitude of symbols hidden in it but there are specific ones that stand out the most. The recurrence of the wallpaper definitely makes it a symbol. An interesting interpretation is that the wallpaper represents women, in the sense that the 18th century woman was considered almost decorative and that is exactly what the purpose of wallpaper is. Another prominent symbol that runs parallel with the wallpaper, are the women the narrator would see in the wallpaper. The women appear trapped behind bars in the paper and one could argue that the women the narrator sees represents all women of her time, continuously trapped in their gender
Feminism, a movement that promotes equal rights for women, was one of the most influential political ideas of the 19th century. Primarily in the 1860’s, women began to fight for rights. Due to this, some states soon began to grant rights to woman such as voting in local elections. In 1920, women finally gained advantages including owning property and attending college. John Steinbeck’s short story, “The Chrysanthemums” portrays the authors view on feminism through the realistic portrayal of the main character between being a strong woman and a traditional woman while revealing the notions of patriarchy, gender stereotyping, and inequality.
The short story "The Chrysanthemums" gives insight into the life of its author. John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. The locale of the story is of key resemblance to the Salinas in which Steinbeck was born and bread. "Salinas was a typical American small town, [differing] only in location and a few distinctive features" (McCarthy 3). The protagonist of this story, Elisa Allen, also resembles Steinbeck's first wife. "Steinbeck probably based the character of Elisa Allen on his own first wife, Carol Henning Steinbeck. Like Elisa, Carol was a woman of considerable talent and energy who wore 'masculine clothes' and was 'strong, large-boned' and 'handsome rather than pretty'" (Hughes 23). Similar to the time frame in which Steinbeck lived, the theme of the story comes across as being male dominant and the rustic setting allows us to visualize this.
In this comparative essay, I shall be analysing Lawrence’s Odour of Chrysanthemums and Joyce’s A Painful Case (Dubliners), identifying and highlighting similarities, but also examining the divergences. I will be scrutinizing the elegantly intertwined fibres which are the symbols and motifs of both stories, in search of intersections, moments of parallelism and detachments.
History has been troubled many times by the combats created by the controversy between science and religion. In John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, children live in a theocracy where the image of God is strongly enforced and anything opposing the religion would be cast away. Therefore, these quarrels between fact and fiction must have reshaped today’s society. Cultures with powerful views and being scared of any difference like in The Chrysalids have greatly affected humanity and culture, and these habits will linger eternally.
Most women have a sense of freedom and independence from their male counterparts, but they will not reach out away from their sheltered lives with a male to a new challenge or a new life. Women whom breakout of the their molds made by their significant other take a chance with life and try to become the independent woman others dream about at night. On the Allen’s farm, chrysanthemums flourish, but does Elisa Allen flourish with them? With tender care, the flowers grow heartily and healthily, though the one who tends them is not so satisfied with her rooting in life. In “Chrysanthemums,” John Steinbeck portrays Elisa Allen as a stereotypical female, yearning to bloom like the flowers she harvests.
The wallpaper symbolizes the trapped narrator and the structure of the tradition. Also, Elisa’s chrysanthemums are discarded and the narrator’s feelings are disowned which portrays the rejection of women. Elisa ends up “crying weakly like an old woman” and settles for wine (233). The narrator’s actions lead to her husband fainting “but he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time” (447). The narrator is insane and causes faintness in her husband, hoping that she now has an escape. To conclude, John Steinbecks “The Chrysanthemums” and Charloette Perkins “The Yellow Wallpaper” show two different outcomes mainly arisen due to being trapped inside an isolated house or a garden and having a limited life under a husband's control.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, a short story by Charlotte Gilman, there are many symbols within the text that one can construe a myriad of ways. One of the most prominent and perhaps the most important symbol is the titled yellow wallpaper. To the main character, Jane, the wallpaper is at first a nuisance, then an obsession, and finally
... Their attitude and tone is something that can be contrasted in the two stories.
The Yellow Wallpaper” which is symbolic of the protagonist’s emotional state. The house is located far from the road and three miles from town which indicates that there would be little interaction with outsiders. In addition, it is surrounded by hedges, gardens, and a body of water that make the house difficult to access. The protagonist even claims the house may be haunted and describes the abandoned surrounding cottages and many locks giving the setting a sinister atmosphere.
The wagon expressed how the family relationship was in the story. In the story the wagon on moving day was broken and hard to use when they moved from the country and also wants to connected the broken wagon to the broken relationships between the family. “The boy could remember-the battered stove, the broken beds and chairs, the clock inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which would not run, stopped at some fourteen minutes past two o 'clock of a dead and forgotten day and time, which had been his mother 's dowry (Faulkner 227)” explains the condition of the wagon and with the condition of the wagon creates some conflict during the beginning of the text. In the story, “The wagon went on, the store with its quiet crowd of grimly watching men dropped behind; a curve in the road hid it. Forever he thought. Maybe he 's done satisfied now, now that he has ... stopping himself, not to say it aloud even to himself. His mother 's hand touched his shoulder (Faulkner 228) explains the conflict that happen with the wagon and the effect it had on the family. According to Hans H. Skei ‘s Article “The description of the wagon, loaded with the family’s belongings, with two hulking sisters and a crying mother, is indicative of what sort of life Ab Snopes has created for the family from which he expects total loyalty
The traditional role of women in the American society has transformed as society has trended towards sexual equality. In the past women were expected to be submissive to the man and were looked upon as homemakers rather then providers. Modern day women enjoy the freedom of individuality and are considered as capable as men in many regards. John Steinbeck’s short story, “The Chrysanthemums,” portrays a woman’s struggle with accepting her life and role as a female (459). Through the protagonist-female character, Elisa Allen, and the symbolism of chrysanthemums, Steinbeck displays the gender roles that define past generations of women’s lives in the United States.
The yellow wallpaper being the most significant and obvious symbol which underlie societies attempts regarding women in the late 19th century, gives the reader an eye opening view to the repression women were under and still are in todays society. The main character writing in her notebook symbolizes a sense of stability in an oppressed life. Lastly, the isolated room, gave sense of symbolizing a safe haven for the narrator or even imprisonment. The symbols exposed in "The Yellow Wallpaper" give the short story a stronger essential meaning and a sense that the narrator was not entirely insane, however a women who found her individuality in something as horrid as the yellow wallpaper. In short, the yellow wallpaper mirrors the makeover of a woman’s identity which is triggered by a corrupt social structure that stops woman from being their true
For my project I decided to create and laser cut several objects in order to portray the answer to the essential questions I chose in relation to Purple Hibiscus. I wanted to focus on the relationship between Papa and Kambili, especially on Papa’s end because of how strict he is and the punishments he places when he is not obeyed. I started by asking a broad question on whether or not Papa’s expression of love really was love. This leads into the next object I cut out which was Papa using a whip implying he was beating someone. Papa’s way of showing love was very obscure as he rarely showed his love for his children, but rather beat and destroyed his children physically and mentally, in addition to showing glimpses of love which his children strived to have
Over the past few months in class we have learned about many aspects of literature. Some examples of them are characterization, setting, style, tone, allegory, theme, and symbolism. I chose to write this essay about the symbolism aspect that is featured in so many great works of literature. Two such stories that we have read in which symbolism is demonstrated is in The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck, and The Worker in Sandalwood by Majorie Pickthall.