book report of The Chrysanthemums

Book Report of The Chrysanthemums I. About the author:

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr.[1][2] (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He was an author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories; Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

II. About the back ground of the short story :

\John Steinbeck, part of his collection The Long Valley.

The Long Valley is a collection of short stories written by the American author John Steinbeck. The collection was first published in 1938.[3] It comprises 12 short stories.

The short stories were written over several years and are set in Steinbeck's birthplace, the Salinas Valley in California. They include the prize-winning tale The Murder; The Chrysanthemums, the representation of lynch mob violence in the The Vigilante; and the classic Red Pony tales. Many of the stories were published previously. The \Red Pony\Reader's Digest.[4]

III. Brief summary of the short story:

i. Main characters[5]: a)Elisa Allen

A passionate woman who lives an unsatisfying life. As a result, she devotes all of her energy to maintaining her house and garden. Elisa is so frustrated with life that she readily looks for stimulating conversation and even sex.

b)The Tinker

He is clever and canny enough to convince the skeptical Elisa to give him work, begging at first and finally resorting to flattery. In fact ,he is just a con man.

c)Henry Allen

Elisa’s husband, Henry ,is everything a woman should want in a husband by the standards of his society . He provides for her, treats her with respect. However, Henry is also stolid and unimaginative. Henry functions in the story as a stand-in for patriarchal society as a whole. He believes that a strict line separates the sexes.

ii. The plot of the story[6]

Elisa Allen and her husband Henry live peacefully on their farm. When Elisa is busy with her chrysanthemums in the garden, a tinker passes by and asks for work .She refused directly. Later when the man enquires about her chrysanthemums and asks for some “seeds” to bring to“a lady”, Elisa gets emotional and finds him two pots to mend. The tinker drives away with fifty cents and the cuttings. When riding on the road with her husband, Elisa sees the chrysanthemum shoots she sent to the \thrown on the road. She is dismayed and cries sadly

IV. Comments:

When I first read this story, I did not understand it clearly. I take it for granted that this story is just talking about Elisa’s superb skills in maintain Chrysanthemums and her peaceful life with her husband Henry, comparing with

the tinker’s ugly skills in deceiving Elisa, which reveals the ugly side of human beings. However, after reading it for several times and surfing the internet to find some background and reviews articles about it, I found myself totally wrong. This story has a lot of things to dig out. Here something we infer from this story.

[7]

A )) The chrysanthemums’ symbolic meaning:

The chrysanthemums symbolize both Elisa and the limited scope of her life.

Like Elisa, the chrysanthemums are lovely, strong, and thriving. Their flowerbed, like Elisa’s house, is tidy and scrupulously ordered. Elisa explicitly identifies herself with the flowers, even saying that she becomes one with the plants when she tends to them. When the tinker notices the chrysanthemums, Elisa visibly brightens, just as if he had noticed her instead. She offers the chrysanthemums to him at the same time she offers herself, both of which he ignores and tosses aside. His rejection of the flowers also mimics the way society has rejected women as nothing more than mothers and housekeepers. Just like her, the flowers are unobjectionable and also unimportant: both are merely decorative and add little value to the world.

B )) The Salinas Valley’s symbolic meaning:

The Salinas Valley symbolizes Elisa’s emotional life. The story opens with a lengthy description of the valley, which Steinbeck likens to a pot topped with a lid made of fog. The metaphor of the valley as a “closed pot” suggests that Elisa is trapped inside an airless world and that her existence has reached a boiling point. We also learn that although there is sunshine nearby, no light penetrates the valley. Sunshine is often associated with happiness, and the implication is that while people near her are happy, Elisa is not. It is December, and the prevailing atmosphere in the valley is chilly and watchful but not yet devoid of hope. This description of the weather and the general spirits of the inhabitants of the valley applies equally well to Elisa, who is like a fallow field: quiet but not beaten down or unable to grow. What first seems to be a lyrical description of a valley in California is revealed to be a rich symbol of Elisa’s claustrophobic,

unhappy, yet hopeful inner life.

C )) fog and rain’s symbolic meaning: \”

Fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry, respectively: the former all too indistinct, and the latter altogether absent\about going out for dinner. He also suggests they go to the fights. When she mentions she is not interested, he backs down very easily. This exchange between the couple clues the reader in to the lack of conflict in their marriage.

D )) Fences’ symbolic meaning:

Fences symbolize the barriers that separate Elisa from the rest of the world, including her husband Henry. Her fences protect flower garden from cattle, dogs, and chickens which represent her husband’s world while her flower garden represents Elisa’s world. “He had come near quietly, and leaned over the wire fence .” This shows that Henry is always treading softly around Elisa, courteous but always leaning over careful not to intrude into the woman’s world . The Tinker’s caravan pulls “up to Elisa’s wire fence and stops .” The Tinker, bearer of outside influences begins by resting his hands on the wire fence and made it sing . As the meeting progresses and Elisa’s sexuality is awakening the Tinker begins to “lean confidently over the fence and eventually penetrates Elisa’s barrier to come “through the gate .” The Tinker’s entrance into the gate represents Elisa’s passions fully released and she is no longer completely isolated. Elisa’s fence helped to divide her from the outside world full of influences and from a husband who was not completely aware of her.

E )) Clothing’s symbolic meaning:

Elisa’s clothing changes as her muted, masculine persona becomes more feminine after the visit from the tinker. When the story begins, Elisa is wearing an androgynous gardening outfit, complete with heavy shoes, thick gloves, a man’s hat, and an apron filled with sharp, phallic implements. The narrator even describes her body as “blocked and heavy.” The masculinity of Elisa’s clothing

and shape reflects her asexual existence. After speaking with the tinker, however, Elisa begins to feel intellectually and physically stimulated, a change that is reflected in the removal of her gloves. She also removes her hat, showing her lovely hair. When the tinker leaves, Elisa undergoes an almost ritualistic transformation. She strips, bathes herself, examines her naked body in the mirror, and then dresses. She chooses to don fancy undergarments, a pretty dress, and makeup. These feminine items contrast sharply with her bulky gardening clothes and reflect the newly energized and sexualized Elisa. At the end of the story, after Elisa has seen the castoff shoots, she pulls up her coat collar to hide her tears, a gesture that suggests a move backward into the repressed state in which she has lived most, if not all, of her adult life.

F )) red flower pot’s symbolic meaning:

Elisa lets the tinker into the yard, she goes and gets a bright red flower pot. The red is important here because red is the symbol of power and passion. At this point in the story, Elisa is beginning to feel her own power. She is realizing she can bring forth life in her flowers, even if she is not powerful in other aspects of her life. Also, since the encounter with the tinker is likened to a sexual experience, the red flower pot is significant of their passion. The pot is symbolic of her self and her feelings.

Themes---------The Inequality of Gender

“The Chrysanthemums” is an understated but pointed critique of a society that has no place for intelligent women. Elisa is smart, energetic, attractive, and ambitious, but all these attributes go to waste. Henry is not as intelligent as Elisa, but it is he who runs the ranch, supports himself and his wife, and makes business deals. Whatever information she gets about the management of the ranch comes indirectly from Henry, who speaks only in vague, condescending terms instead of treating his wife as an equal partner. The tinker seems cleverer than Henry but doesn’t have Elisa’s spirit, passion, or thirst for adventure. Nevertheless, it is he who gets to ride about the country, living an adventurous life that he believes it is unfit for women. Steinbeck uses Henry and the tinker as

stand-ins for the paternalism of patriarchal societies in general: just as they ignore women’s potential, so too does society.

Reference documents:

[1] French, Warren G. (1975). John Steinbeck. Twayne Publishers. p. 20. ISBN 0805706933.

[2] St. Pierre, Brian (1983). John Steinbeck, the California years. Chronicle Books. p. 11. ISBN 0877012814.

[3]The Long Valley, Western Washington University, Accessed November 2007 [4]Introduction to John Steinbeck, The Long Valley, John Timmerman, Penguin Publishing, 1995

[5] From “The_Chrysanthemums_菊花_斯坦贝克.ppt-------characters” } [6] From “The_Chrysanthemums_菊花_斯坦贝克.ppt-------summary” }（超链接）

[7] From “The_Chrysanthemums_菊花_斯坦贝克.ppt-------symbols” }

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