Gender Roles In The Chrysanthemums

“The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck is a story about a strong woman named Elisa, who is limited to live her full self. Although the two key men in the story are less interesting and talented than she, their lives are far more fulfilling and busy. The author conveys to the audiences the picture of inequality society in gender through characters, conflicts, point of view, and settings of the story.
Steinbeck has done a great job at describing characters by juxtaposing different genders. Henry is the protagonist's husband who loves his wife but doesn’t understand her intimately. Throughout the story, readers can see that Henry treats Elisa as a sibling rather than a wife to him. Henry is traditional; he represents the patriarchal society as …show more content…
self, man vs. man, and man vs. society. The first conflict is man vs. self, between Elisa and herself. She knows herself as a woman who is capable of doing things with her true potential, but there is a limitation of social norms. Elisa doesn’t want to settle to be a typical woman, so she wants an escape for her life, “Elisa stood in front of her wire fence watching the slow progress of the caravan. Her shoulders were straight, her head thrown back, her eyes half closed, so that the scene came vaguely into them . . . . she whispered, ‘That’s a bright direction. There’s a glowing there’”(Steinbeck, “The Chrysanthemums”). This scene makes her thinks that she has hope for her life. Her self-awareness shows the readers how passionate about what she can do, but she must feels powerless in her situation. This leads to a second conflict: man vs. man, between Elisa and her husband and Elisa and tinker. With Elisa’s husband, their marriage is functional but not passionate. Henry looks at his wife as fulfilling a typical woman’s role in society; women have to stay home and take care of the family and be a housewife while the men support the family. He doesn’t understand that Elisa is a strong, independent woman who needs to be fulfilled in her life by living with her full potential. On other hand, the tinker is a charming one that makes Elisa think that someone acknowledge her. But he is also the one that doesn’t believe in her and thinks women are not suitable for his adventurous life. “‘It must be nice.’ she said. ‘It must be very nice. I wish women could do such things.’ ‘It’s ain’t the right kind of life for a woman’” (Steinbeck, “The Chrysanthemums”). With the tinker, women are very weak and not capable of doing things that men are able to do. She is not able to express herself in front of her husband and the tinker. The third conflict is man vs. society, between Elisa and patriarchal society. There is no place for a