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The Chrysanthemums
Within the larger, rural setting of the Salinas Valley, “The Chrysanthemums” includes the more specific, contrasting settings of the Allens' farm and the road leading into town. On their farm,...
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The Chrysanthemums
According to Freytag's Pyramid, a tool of structural analysis of a literary piece, the rising action is the segment of the story in which the conflicts begin to escalate. In John Steinbeck's "The...
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The Chrysanthemums
“The Chrysanthemums” represents how Elisa is restrained by the cultural forces that limit a woman’s agency. From the opening lines of the story, we get a sense of Elisa’s confinement in the...
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The Chrysanthemums
Rich in symbolism, Steinbeck's story "The Chrysanthemums" begins with a description of the "grey-flannel fog of winter" closing off the Salinas Valley from "the rest of the world": On every side...
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The Chrysanthemums
When we first meet Elisa, she is working in her garden and tending to her chrysanthemums. It's important to note her physical appearance here. She has a "lean and strong" face which is mostly...
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The Chrysanthemums
Elisa and Henry have a solid relationship. They are both hardworking and "strong" people. Their relationship, while not really discussed, seems a little stiff. They decide to go out to...
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The Chrysanthemums
Elisa recognizes the tinker as a kind of kindred spirit. More than that, she realizes that the tinker's lifestyle, in which he lives out of his wagon, following the "good weather" up and down the...
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The Chrysanthemums
The opening line skillfully sets the scene for what kind of life Elisa and her husband lead in the Salinas Valley: The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky...
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The Chrysanthemums
In a way, the theme of the American Dream does surface in "The Chrysanthemums." Elisa has visions of a more exciting life, a more exciting American Dream. Elisa has a comfortable but limited life....
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The Chrysanthemums
With the description in the first two paragraphs of the dormant Salinas Valley that in the winter is a "closed pot," there is the suggestion of what is to come. "The grey-flannel fog of winter"...
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The Chrysanthemums
Elisa is perhaps considered a complex character because she seems sometimes passionate and lively and at other times melancholy and restless. She is passionate and lively when she is working with...
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The Chrysanthemums
The crucial moment of foreshadowing in the story occurs when Elisa sees a dark speck on the road and realizes, to her great sadness and disappointment, that the traveling tinker has discarded the...
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The Chrysanthemums
In John Steinbeck’s story, Elisa has greatly enjoyed discussing gardening with the itinerant peddler who has stopped by the farm. Although some part of her understands that she is trying to sell...
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The Chrysanthemums
In The Chrysanthemums, Elisa is portrayed as isolated but initially unconcerned with the solitary situation of the farm where she and her husband live. A sensible person, she seems satisfied with...
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The Chrysanthemums
Let us remember that a round character is the opposite of a flat character, in that the character is presented in his or her full psychological complexity, with a number of different...
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The Chrysanthemums
This is a Sanskrit word. A yonic symbol is a representation of feminitity and reproductive power. Represented in literature by cups, cauldrons, chalices, goblets, wells, circles, hoops, and other...
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The Chrysanthemums
The most important conflict in the story is the limitation of Elisa's life as a woman isolated on a small farm in the Salinas Valley in the years after the Depression. Confined by gender roles to...
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The Chrysanthemums
The central idea in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” concerns a woman’s loneliness and unfulfilling life in her marriage, which she sublimates by gardening and tries to satisfy through her...
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The Chrysanthemums
John Steinbeck’s artistry encapsulates one day in the life of a woman who finds herself yearning for more in the story “The Chrysanthemums.” The engaging story involves only three characters whose...
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The Chrysanthemums
The dominant symbol in this excellent short story is of course the symbol that gives it its title: the chrysanthemums that Elisa invests so much time and effort into. These flowers are so much a...
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The Chrysanthemums
The story begins in the Salinas Valley, which is pretty common in several of Steinbeck's stories. Elisa is planting her beloved chrysanthemums when her husband comes to speak with her after he made...
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The Chrysanthemums
Metaphorically linking Elisa with the "closed pot" of the fertile Salinas Valley, Steinbeck has both the land and Elisa existing in "a time of quiet and of waiting." After the stranger, who is "a...
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The Chrysanthemums
“The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck concerns romance and deception. A woman who finds herself frustrated in her life may be susceptible to the deceitful talk of a man who wants something from...
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The Chrysanthemums
In John Steinbeck's story, "The Chrysanthemums," the character of Elisa is indeed a confusing character. She exhibits conflicting behavior throughout the story. At first she is seen wearing...
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The Chrysanthemums
Steinbeck's "Chrysanthemums" is a short story first published in an 1937 issue of Harper's, and later in a collection of stories in The Long Valley, published in 1938. It is believed by some to be...
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The Chrysanthemums
Both of these questions relate to the theme of the limits placed on opportunities that are available for women at the time. When the tinker comes to the ranch, telling Elisa about his life of...
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The Chrysanthemums
In her first interaction with her husband, Elisa is a little smug with him. He compliments her work but then, somewhat dismissive, says she ought to put more work into the orchard. He has sold some...
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The Chrysanthemums
The stranger is a tinker: someone who travels from place to place, mending metal objects such as pots and pans. As part of his job, he effectively has to sell his skills to the people he meets on...
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The Chrysanthemums
To me, the main theme of the story is how marriage limits a woman's potential during this period of time. When Elisa asks the stranger about his life on the road, she responds by saying, "It...
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The Chrysanthemums
One of the key aspects of Gothic texts is that of isolation and setting. A lot of the action in Gothic texts takes place in settings that are removed from "normal" society, such as abandoned abbeys...
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The Chrysanthemums
The "dark speck" that Elisa notices at the end of the story as she drives into town with her husband for dinner refers to the dirt that she gave the peddler. This of course triggers off a kind of...
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The Chrysanthemums
Authors often use literary devices in their narratives as the employment of this figurative language embellishes a story, making the common uncommon, extending the meaning of something beyond its...
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The Chrysanthemums
All three of your suggestions will work for a thesis statement in John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums." You might want to form a thesis statement showing how symbolism enhances the imagery in the...
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The Chrysanthemums
Below, I provide some quotes that exhibit one of the main themes of the story: female sexuality. Behind her stood the neat white farm house with red geraniums close-banked around it as high as the...
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The Chrysanthemums
In Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," the reader sees a shift of Elisa's emotions several times in the story. When the peddler stops, looking for work, Elisa is business-like as he tries to convince...
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The Chrysanthemums
After the tinker has left and Elisa bathes before she and her husband go out to celebrate his sale of thirty steer, she hears her husband enter. When he comes "banging out of the door" after...
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The Chrysanthemums
When the tinker arrives on the Allen farm, his main objective is to be able to repair something so that he can earn money. After Elisa tells him that she has nothing in need of repair, he does not...
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The Chrysanthemums
Elisa Allen’s frustrations about her life dominate “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck. As the protagonist, Elisa wants more from life. She has a good husband who works hard to provide a good...
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The Chrysanthemums
As defined by Buzzle.com... "Naturalism in literature was a literary movement that suggested the involvement of environment, heredity and social conditions in shaping the human character." In the...
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The Chrysanthemums
In the story, "The Chrysanthemums," by John Steinbeck, Elisa's "sense of power" comes from her ability to make things grow. She takes great pride in this, and this helps her to define who she is...
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The Chrysanthemums
These words are the inquiry of the tinker who speaks with Elisa Allan in John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums." After Elisa tells him that she has nothing for him to repair, the tinker looks at...
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The Chrysanthemums
Elisa "cries like an old woman" because she is absolutely crushed because she realizes that she has been duped by the tinker and that he was not interested in her chrysanthemums at all....
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The Chrysanthemums
John Steinbeck's short story, "The Chrysanthemums" was written in 1937 and published in a collection of short stories in 1938, which was entitled The Long Valley. While there is little in the...
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The Chrysanthemums
Tone is typically defined as the author's attitude towards the subject matter of his/her work. The tone of "The Chrysanthemums" is one of oppression and confinement. Elisa is very...
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The Chrysanthemums
John Steinbeck’s famous short story “The Chrysanthemums” might easily provide the basis for a successful short film. The story has a lucid plot, memorable characters, an interesting setting, and...
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The Chrysanthemums
In John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," the traveling repair man ignites the repressed passion in Elisa as well as her other hidden qualities. When he arrives he finds Elisa unreceptive to him;...
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The Chrysanthemums
This is an excellent short story that features the life of one woman, Eliza, who feels trapped and enclosed by life. It is important to note how the setting adds to this feeling of oppression and...
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The Chrysanthemums
It is important to focus on the presentation of the central character in this story, Elisa, is presented. From the very beginning of this excellent tale Steinbeck is quick to focus on the...
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The Chrysanthemums
The scissors are a phallic symbol in the narrative. Elisa's association with the scissors helps illustrate how power works between men and women within the arc of the story. When the reader first...
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The Chrysanthemums
In this excellent short story by John Steinbeck, Elisa is the main protagonist. She is thirty-five and married to Henry Allen. They live together without any children on a ranch in the Salinas...
