Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck

Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck

Jonathan Schoonmaker
Elisa character essay
In the short story The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck there is a main character named Elisa. She has many different personalities throughout the story. She is strong yet weak, and she is also an extremely hard worker. She is a woman who is comfortable with her body because she can look into the mirror while she is naked. She tries to act manly just to show that she can survive in a male based society.

In the short story Elisa has a few conflicts. There is a conflict with herself and her husband. Her husband is a normal man in that time period (1930‘s), he’s hard works, and rough. As Elisa was working in her garden of her garden of Chrysanthemums, her husband comes to the fence of her flower garden. That shows that he wont enter “her” area because she is inside the fence. Instead of greeting him she just straightens her back, pulls her glove back on and continues back to work. I think that she’s trying to show that can work as diligently as a man but she is a woman. He then says to her “I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.” She replies “Maybe I could do that too.” I believe that she doesn’t want to work out in his orchards. She says that line because she doesn’t want to say no but she doesn’t want to work in them. She wants to work in her own area. Where her own creations are that no man has helped her with.
In the fist few paragraphs of the short story Elisa’s husband sells 30 cattle to a man. He comes over to her ands tells her the great news. In stead of saying good, she says “good for you”. She doesn’t believe that it is hers as well, that leads me to believe that her and her husband aren’t really in a relationship. Granted they are married but the do not communicate at all, its more of what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours. Also later in the story as she is getting ready to go out to dinner it shows that they don’t share...