Alice Munro's Boys and Girls and John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums

Many readers who analyze Steinbeck's short story, "The Chrysanthemums", feel Elisa's flowers represent her repressed sexuality, and her anger and resentment towards men. Some even push the symbolism of the flowers, and Elisa's masculine actions, to suggest she is unable to establish a true relationship between herself and another. Her masculine traits and her chrysanthemums are enough to fulfill her entirely. This essay will discuss an opposing viewpoint. Instead, it will argue that Elisa's chrysanthemums, and her masculine qualities are natural manifestations of a male dominated world. Pertinent examples from "The Chrysanthemums" will be given in an attempt to illustrate that Elisa's character qualities, and gardening skills,

The setting of both stories reinforces the notion of women's dependence on men. The late 1800's were a turbulent time for women's roles. The turn of the century

In Alice Munro short story “Boys and Girls” is about a young girl confused in life about herself maturing into a young women that takes place on a fox farm in Jubilee, Ontario, Canada with her parents and her younger brother. The character of the young girl that is not specified by a name in the story is struggling with the roles that are expected by her peers of a young women in the 1940’s. This young girl has been helping her father on the fox farm for many years in which brought so much of a joy in her life. As she gets older, as well and as her younger brother Laird grows older, she is starting to realize that her younger brother will be soon be taking over the roles and responsibility of taking care of the animals. Then her mother and grandmother points out the anticipations of her to start acting more like how a young women of her age should present themselves and this has great emotional effects on her, and at the end of the story she shows a final act of disobedience against her father, but it only shows the thing she resist the most, her maturing into a young women and becoming her own person.

After reading “A&P” by John Updike and Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls”, a centralized theme arose. Each story’s protagonist demonstrates a unique internal struggle centered on the restrictions society places upon them. Even though the short stories written by John Updike and Alice Munro are remarkably different from each other, it is possible for a reader to interpret similarities between the two.

In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls,” our narrator is a young farm girl on the verge of puberty who is learning what it means to be a “girl.” The story shows the differing gender roles of boys and girls – specifically that women are the weaker, more emotional sex – by showing how the adults of the story expect the children to grow into their respective roles as a girl and a boy, and how the children grow up and ultimately begin to fulfill these roles, making the transition from being “children” to being “young adults.”

In the early 20th century, a male author, John Steinbeck, wrote about women’s oppression in the short story, “The Chrysanthemums”. It was different than other stories about women’s oppression because it was in the male point-of-view rather than a female’s point-of-view. This brilliant short story is narrated by a third-person narrator and has some interesting characters such as Elisa, Henry and the traveling salesperson. In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”, the juxtaposition between female and male norms and the symbolism throughout the story illustrates how women were perceived as simplistic and weak people reflected by the gender expectations in the early 20th century.

Equality between men and women is not always accepted in society. In the previous era, men were seen as the person who had the rights to rule over others and who could work outside the home. But the woman was seen only as a woman from home, she had the responsibility of taking care of the children, doing all household chores and her opinion was never considered. In Alice Munro story “Boys and Girls “, the narrator of the story is a girl who lives on a fox farm with her parents and a younger brother but her character is seen between the conflict with society and her desires because the difference of role that plays each genre.

Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.

In many cultures, even today, there are stereotypes about women; i.e. that their job is to cook and clean, or that they are not as strong as men are. Many people would probably admit that they view men as tougher individuals whose responsibility is to protect and put food on the table. This theme of the male versus female power constitutes as prevalent in both Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. These authors intricately weave this idea into their novels through their characters’ specific duties, their characters’ behaviors and emotions, and the way children are viewed and treated according to gender. Both novels are set in the late 19th, early 20th century, but take

In Alice Munro’s short story, Boys and Girls, the underlying theme displayed throughout the entirety of the story is conforming and defying to society’s gender expectations. This is shown through the literary device, symbolism. Symbolism is seen through Flora the horse and the protagonist’s mother.

In conjunction with the symbolic representation of Elisa’s life, the dramatic description of the environment can also be seen as a unique representation of the relationship conflict between husband and wife. Steinbeck’s foggy description demonstrates conflict through the following statement, "a time of quiet and waiting." This description is interesting because the fields are personified as waiting for rain, however, “rain and fog do not go together” therein lies the conflict just as Elisa waits for a positive change in how her husband treats her (Palmerino, Gregory J). Gregory P. further points out that, “The natural elements of the foothills ranch seem as unwilling to confront each other as the characters that inhabit its environs. Hence, fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry.” This only further solidifies the deep rooted troubles within Elisa and her relationship with her husband. The setting of the story is personified to act as a symbolic representation of the couple’s relationship (Steinbeck, John 337-338).

The narrative voice is intriguing when choosing a literacy technique when applied to Alice Munro 's “Boys and Girls” and Jamaica Kincaid 's “Girl” because it highlights the significance of women 's role during the 1960 's. The story of Boys and Girls is in third person narration describing an eleven- year old girl. This story was published in 1968, a time when the second wave of feminism movement occurred. This story gives information about adult gender roles. The setting of the story is in Canada during the winter. The narrator is living in a fox- breeding farm which correlates to the North American culture in the 1960 's. In the 1960 's, women were stereotyped as happy wives and mothers. In contrast, the society believed that unmarried

Both Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants and John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums portray oppressed female characters in the early 1900s. In Hemingway’s short, Jig is oppressed by her lover known only as “The American,” whereas, the main character in The Chrysanthemums, Elisa Allen, feels the weight of oppression from society (male dominated) as a whole. Although the driving force of the two women’s subjugation varies slightly, their emotional responses to such are what differentiate the two.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about boys and for boys. As the name says, there are “adventures”, boys like adventures, not ladies. The role of the women in the American literature has been always victim of sexism and

The short story “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck tells the story of Elisa Allen, a woman living with her husband in the Salinas Valley. Elisa is unsatisfied with her role as a rancher’s wife and would like to gain more independence and importance, yet she lives in a time when women were generally not as independent as men. The singular effect of entrapment is present throughout aspects of Elisa’s life from her personal identity, to her relationship with her husband, to her interactions with the pot mender. When the travelling pot mender arrives and speaks of his lifestyle, Elisa’s desire to see and do more in life is stirred. In the end he discards Elisa’s importance, which leaves her feeling dejected. Ultimately, she becomes defeated in her pursuit for a more meaningful existence. In “The Chrysanthemums,” author John Steinbeck represents the theme of gender inequality through the development of Elisa’s primary dilemma of a lack of purpose and importance in a society that did not see men and women as equals.