The Chrysanthemums

Part I of Essay
John Steinbeck, in his short story "" depicts the trials of a woman attempting to gain power in a man's world. Elisa Allen tries to define the boundaries of her role as a woman in such a closed society. While her environment is portrayed as a tool for social repression, it ....

Part II of Essay
.... environment is trying to change. Just as the farmers are waiting for an unlikely rain, Elisa and all woman are hopeful for a change in their enclosed lives. Steinbeck foreshadows, "It was a time of quiet and waiting" (396). The action of the story opens with Elisa Allen working in her garden. She is surrounded by a wire fence, which physically is there to protect her flowers from the farm animals. This barrier symbolizes her life; she is fenced in from the real world, from a man's world. It is a smaller, on-earth version of the environment in ....