The Chrysanthemums - Blog 5

The first time I read The Chrysanthemums I was very confused about the point of the story. The next time I read it through, though, some themes began to emerge - Elisa is an intelligent, creative woman whose only excitement in life appears to be her flowers, and going to town for dinner with her husband, who she didn't seem to be happily married to (though it is apparent she loves him). Her life seems to be very constricted. Sometimes I also feel constricted, because at this point, my life feels like its just work and school. I just keep telling myself its not for forever though! I don't know if Elisa stayed on the farm forever or not, and that made me feel a sense of sadness for her.

The next thing I noticed about Elisa was her curiosity. She is out in her flower gardens working, and noticed her husband talking to two fellows. She keeps looking over there, and her curiosity was apparent. I understand that feeling because I'm really curious about things too!

I could also relate very well with Elisa's love and happiness in her flowers, because I like growing flowers very much too. As she's working on her flowers one day, along comes the traveling man and while explaining to the man about "planting hands" (636) she gives us a glimpse that maybe her life is more satisfying that we realized at first; "She broke in on him, "I've never lived as you do, but I know what you mean. When the night is dark - why the stars are sharp-pointed, and there's quiet. Why you rise up and up! Every pointed star gets driven into your body. Its like that. Hot and sharp and - lovely." (636) Or at least we see here that she enjoys the small pleasures in life. Soon, the tinker, who gives Elisa a glimpse into his 'adventurous' life, leaves, and Elisa appears to long for adventure from her confined life.

In the end, Elisa "turned up her coat collar so he [her husband] could not see that she was crying weakly - like an old woman" (639) just after she asks her husband if they could have some wine. This concerned me because it seemed like she was depressed, and drinking wine when your depressed could not be good (at least I've heard that). The main part of that that bothered me though was that she didn't want Henry to see her crying, which would have shown him she was vulnerable [i.e. weak] at that time. It made me feel sad that for some reason or reasons she felt that she couldn't be herself with her husband and let him see her crying. I also understand that very well at times with my own husband, and feel like I have to hide my crying from him (sometimes I don't feel safe enough with him to be vulnerable to him because of the negative ways he's reacted in the past to my hurt feelings). Maybe Elisa felt that way too.

Overall I enjoyed this story. I didn't think it was a story about feminism, per say, but it had the undertones of trying to show unfairly women were treated and biased against in 1938 (and other years of course).