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Steinbeck women characters
Narrative personal writing
Narrative personal writing
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Steinbeck women characters
Narrative personal writing
Narrative personal writing
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In John Steinbacks “The Chrysanthemums,” the shift of the setting from the ranch to the road plays an important role in the development of the main character, Elisa. Therefore, in the first setting, Elisa is in her garden attending to her the chrysanthemums, which she loves and cares for. Immediately, we’re placed in a rural setting, where women happen to live in isolation and man is manly. Elisa sneaks quick glances towards the men by the tractor shed, who is talking to her husband, waiting for them to leave, so she can throw aside her gloves and work her fingers into the soil of the garden. However, Elisa shows her fearless side by quickly digging in the garden, with her eagerness to grow her chrysanthemums, right after the men leave.
Almost every child has thought about running away from home at least once in their life, if not more. Although this usually is an empty threat, for Lily Owens, the protagonist in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, it was a milestone. The summer of 1964 marked the year she finally realized there was nothing holding her back from escaping her abusive father. As she leaves home for her journey, she takes her African American, motherlike housekeeper with her, who was in jail for insulting some racists. Together, they find their way to three beekeeping sisters, one of which helps Lily to finally understand what happened to her late mother.
Chrysanthemums are beautiful, delicate flowers, which often symbolize happiness. In the short story, “The Chrysanthemums,” John Steinbeck walks the readers through the lives of Elisa and Henry Allen. They live on a foothill ranch in Salinas Valley, California, where they spend most of their days living a simple lifestyle. The Allens focus their time on maintaining their ranch, but in the eyes of Elisa, this meant more time for her to tend to her beloved chrysanthemums. Steinbeck incorporates quizzical diction and repetition to characterize Elisa and to define happiness, to convey the message that it is more important to be happy than to try to please everybody else.
The Chrysanthemums Literary Analysis One of the themes of “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck is gender inequality. In this short story, the main character Elisa Allen was a strong, smart woman who was stuck being a common housewife. Elisa wishes she could go out and be like the tinker, sleeping under the stars and adventuring every day of her life. Elisa’s husband owns a ranch of some sorts, and when he tells Elisa of the business deal he’d just made he gave her an unspecific explanation, or a dumbed down one so he doesn’t “confuse her”.
Throughout literature the constant theme of identity has been explored, with Northrop Frye even suggesting “the story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework for all literature.” For characters, true identity isn’t always apparent, it needs to be searched for. Sometimes the inner struggle for identity stems from ones need for belonging. Whether one finds their sense of identity within friends, family, or in a physical “home”. It’s not always a place that defines identity.
In Kate Chopin’ s novel, The Awakening, there are three identities inside of the female leading role, Edna Pontellier, being a wife, mother and own self. Edna was born in 19th century at the Vitoria period, a patriarchy society, women have low freedom to achieve personal goal. She married with Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy man with Creole descent. After having a child, her life is still unchangeable and as bored as before. Until she encountered Robert Leburn, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Alcée Arobin, her value of self-cognition has changed.
Often times when a person is forced to outwardly conform while questioning themselves it leads to a struggle between their inner selves and what is expected of them. Outward conformity often oppresses a character’s true feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, leads a dissatisfactory life. She is stuck in a loveless marriage, and has children, all in an attempt to conform to the social norm of the Victorian woman. However, she inwardly questions whether or not she should try to break free from this life to find her own independence and happiness.
But what happens when a person lets go any effort to be someone, become someone or identify themselves to someone? This sole desire to set one’s own tracks leads to the initiation of self-realization. The main character, Edna Pontellier had many different awakenings that set the tracks to her self-awareness
In Yellow Wallpaper,The Chrysanthemums and Boys and Girls women/girls role in society is often limited. In yellow wallpaper John’s wife is suffering from postpartum depression. John does not let her do anything even write in her diary or read. In chrysanthemums Elisa is the best at what she does which is planting chrysanthemums. A guy came to Elisa in a wagon and told her i travel and fix pots for a living.
The setting shapes the mood and tone of a story and has a great affect on what happens in a story. The setting influences the events that take place, how the characters interact and even how they behave. Settings show where and how the character lives, what they do, and what they value. Characters have a relationship with the setting just as much as they do with other characters in the story. This is seen in the effects the setting has on the development of the Character Elisa in the story “The Chrysanthemums.”
Identity is an expression of a person, and through this expression it makes them different or the same from one another. The way someone expresses himself or herself, whether it is through their religion, preferences, moral, goals, or their ethnicity, make up their identity. People often express themselves through their likes and dislikes. Their preference shapes who they are and whom they associate themselves with. For example, a fan of a particular sports team identifies themselves as a fan of the team, and also can identify other people who are also a fan of the sports team.
There are many young individuals that struggle with their own identity and individuality. Many of them have a hard time coping to figure out who they are and want to be. When a parent is raising a child they teach them their own set of morals and beliefs. In the short story “The Glass Roses” written by Alden Nowlan it shows the struggles of a fifteen year old boy who is trying to live up to his father’s expectations to make him proud.
Being a woman in the early twentieth century, she simply followed what her husband told her. She did not have her own voice and kept her thoughts to herself. With that being said, it is as if her identity is simply that of the average woman during her time. However, the days she spends in confinement go by, the identity of that woman drifts away and she is overtaken by the identity of her own mental illness. As said in Diana Martin’s journal on “Images in Psychiatry”, while the narrator in isolation she becomes “increasingly despondent and nervous”.
In her short story “Marigolds”, Eugenia Collier, tells the story of a young woman named Lizabeth growing up in rural Maryland during the Depression. Lizabeth is on the verge of becoming an adult, but one moment suddenly makes her feel more woman than child and has an impact on the rest of her life. Through her use of diction, point of view, and symbolism, Eugenia Collier develops the theme that people can create beauty in their lives even in the poorest of situations. Through her use of the stylistic device diction, Eugenia Collier is able to describe to the reader the beauty of the marigolds compared to the drab and dusty town the story is set in.
Identity is often a cornerstone in a many important works of literature. The struggle of a protagonist to reconcile with their identity and the expectations or restrictions that accompany this struggle often mirrors real life endeavors and makes important critiques on social structure. The essay A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf makes an influential claim that a woman’s identity as lesser than a man’s in society prevents her from the opportunity to fill her role as a writer while the novel The Bell Jar written by Sylvia Plath describes a woman’s struggle to reconcile with her expectations as a woman in the 1950s. Both pieces make a statement about the impact of identity and its influence on the women faced with the consequences of these societal expectations.