The Chrysanthemums Feminist Analysis

Gloria Steinmen, an American feminist, once said,“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn.” This quote helps show us that we need to reconstruct gender roles to decrease sexism and gender inequality’s that we have learned through society. In addition, John Steinbeck’s short story “The Chrysanthemums,”written during the great depression, explores these issues through the life of Elisa, a passionate wife and gardener. Like most women during the great depression and today Elisa struggles with isolation and jealousy of her husband and other men who get to explore the world outside her home. In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,” we see how gender inequality negatively affects women in society. Many Women during the Great Depression and many women today are cut off from the excitement of the outside world. In addition Steinbeck writes, “Her figure …show more content…
Steinbeck writes, “Elisa Allen, working in her flower garden, looked down across the yard and saw Henry, her husband, talking to two men in business suits” (438). Steinbeck swiftly and immediately creates the understanding that Elisa is alone. Not only is she physically alone, she's also separate from the workings of the ranch, which are solely a male domain. He also explains the setting as, “The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot” (Steinbeck 438). We can imagine this place in a rural valley where the residents don't have much exchange with the outside world. When Steinbeck adds to that the fact that Elisa spends most of her days alone at her ranch house, it makes for a pretty strong sense of solitude. Society is constructed for men to work and women to raise the kids, this causes women to feel abandoned from