John Steinbeck- The Chrysanthemums

1) How do you interpret Elisa's asking for wine with dinner? How do you account for her new interest in prize fights?

a) In this short story , wine is a very important symbol . in my opinion wine symbolizes the rebirth of the dead passion . She wants to experience new things she hadn't done before or maybe to redo them after a long time . This is also seen as a restart in her marriage . She wants to be loved and to have a passionate marriage , and as i noticed through the reading , it hasn't been that way . They have a lack of passion , which has contributed in the fact that they do not have children.

b) Elisa , being a little bit confident in her self , asks her husband if any woman could go in a prize fights. She wants to be involved totally in the man's world. Her husband supports her in a kind of way , but is Elisa who doesn't want to go anymore . This way she represses her feelings once again .

2) In a sentence , try to state this short story's theme.

"The Chrysanthemums " is an understated but pointed critique of a society who has no place for intelligent woman. Elisa is smart , energetic , attractive and ambitious , but all these attributes go to waste . Although the two key men in the story are less interesting then Elisa , their lives are far more fulfilling and busy . Henry is not as intelligent as Elisa , but it is he who runs the ranch ,  makes business and deals. All Elisa can do is  watch him from afar  as he performs his job. The tinker seems cleverer than Henry , but he doesn't have Elisa's spirit , passion or thirst for adventure .  Elisa and Henry have  a functional but a passionless marriage and seems to treat each other as siblings than spouses .  Despite the fact that her marriage doesn't meet her needs , Elisa remains a sexual person . As a result of frustrated desires , Elisa's attraction to the tinker is frighteningly powerful and uncontrollable . Her sexuality , forced to lie dormant for so long , overwhelms her and crushes her spirit after springing ti life so suddenly .

9) Why are Elisa's Allen's chrysanthemums so important to this story? Sum up what you understand them to mean?

The Chrysanthemums symbolize both Elisa and her limited scope of her life .Like Elisa they are lovely, strong and thriving. Their flowerbed , like Elisa's house is tidy and ordered .Elisa explicitly identifies her self with the flowers , even when saying she becomes one with the plants when she tends to them. When the tinker notices the chrysanthemums , Elisa visibly brightens , just as if he had noticed her instead. She offers the chrysanthemums to him at the same time she offers her self , both of which he ignores. His rejection of the flowers also mimics the way society  has rejected women  as nothing more then mothers and housekeepers. Just like her , the flowers are unobjectionable and also unimportant : both are merely decorative and add little value to the world.