Steinbeck wrote “The Chrysanthemums” as America exited the Great Depression, but also moved towards the Second World War. Americans had a general hope for a better future, and a sort of denial about the war they knew was eminent. The duality of these warring emotions presents itself in different thematic concepts throughout Steinbeck’s story.
The description of the Valley in the beginning of this story sets this tone of duality. Steinbeck states, “the stubble fields seemed to be bathed in pale cold sunshine, but there was no sunshine in the valley”. In this description the happiness and optimism represented in sunshine is in sight, but unattainable. Steinbeck also writes, “the farmers were mildly hopeful of a good rain before long; but fog and rain do not go together.” This shows that the people are hopeful for the end of suffering, but have an awareness that this is not. Steinbeck’s message of impending war is further enhanced with the symbolism of the rain and fog. The rain, or new life, is stamped out by fog, whose imagery closely mirrors the smoke of war.
Steinbeck includes a couple of symbols that also contribute to this idea of duality. The Chrysanthemum is a celebratory flower in the US but is a common funerary flower in other countries. Steinbeck also includes a lot of imagery with the color yellow. Yellow usually represents happiness and optimism, but the Japanese used the yellow Chrysanthemum as a symbol for bravery in war. So both symbols have a surface meaning of happiness, but also a dark connotation. This mirrors the American surface hope for prosperity, but the hidden awareness of impending darkness.
The awareness of this impending darkness becomes particularly apparent in the ending passage where Elisa questions Henry about the fights. Even though Elisa is a woman and vulgar things such as fights are supposedly hidden from her, she has a thorough knowledge of what goes on at the fights. This mirrors how even though the reality of impending war is supposedly unapparent, everyone secretly knows. Society’s denial is of this widely known “secret” is then embodied when Elisa says she doesn’t want to go the fights and continues to ignore their reality.
The Great Depression also caused conflict in the gender roles of Steinbeck’s time. The Great Depression forced men to be out of the house to look for work and this more closely chained women to their traditional roles at home. Women also felt an increased pressure to go out and provide for their families but they couldn’t because of these traditional expectations. This caused a big conflict in the expectations of women. Steinbeck presents this conflict in Elisa’s character. There are many parts of this story where Elisa is portrayed as a strong and capable person but she is never allowed to fulfill that capacity for power. For example, Elisa has this strong and powerful capability to cultivate life through the Chrysanthemums. Steinbeck describes her as a manly and “over-powerful” as she gardens. When she tries to give this gift to the traveling repairman he stifles her ability by throwing the Chrysanthemums to the ground. When Elisa sees this, she is reduced to “crying weakly—like and old woman.” Elisa is the perfect example of a woman with power being reduced into the weak traditional roles of women.
When reading this story out of context, it is a sad tale about a woman and her flowers. However, when placed in the context of the Great Depression and World War II, so much more can be drawn from the writing. It just goes to show how important it is to know the time period around which stories were written in order to have a proper understanding of the context. Authors always have a motive for writing. Steinbeck was obviously making a statement about the time period and the overall feelings of the American population in The Chrysanthemums.
ReplyDeleteJust like Brandon said, the context of a story is everything. I also blogged about this narrative because I think it tells a great but unfortunate story of a woman's life in that time. Elisa has the potential to be a great and intelligent woman but because of the time she would never have the opportunity to do so.
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