A feminist reading of "the Chrysanthemums" by Steinbeck

A Fe i ist Readi g of Joh “tei e k’s The Chr sa the u s: The “elf of a Wo a i Beau oir’s Idea Mahya Kamalvand The Short and Long Fiction Instructor: Dr. Zohreh Ramin 2015 1 Abstract Joh “tei e k’s The Chr sa the u s, is a asterpie e, hi h del es i to the ps he of a o a and accompanies the reader to see the world through her sight. The image that Steinbeck portrays of Elisa- the protagonist- is marvelously unique, feminine, and upholds a very tangible expression of how it is to feel like a woman in a patriarchal society. In this paper, the effort is to unravel the complexities of Elisa, as a woman, and to brush a clean image of why she is a free feminine psyche. A feminist reading of this short story can help one to understand the setting and context of the plot and can bring about a very good e a ple of hat it is to e a o a . B appl i g “i o de Beau oir’s theories, this is an attempt to bold Elisa as a feminist example of a woman who tries to re-achieve her yielded freedom through getting back to herself. Reading the short story once more through the lenses of Beau oir’s theories of other ess, e odi e t, a d e o i g a o a , Elisa is tr i g to rei trodu e herself with herself as an individual not a social woman. Key words: feminism, feminine, psyche, Beauvoir, woman, other, patriarchal, freedom, alienation 2 Table of contents Abstract Introduction …On the writer …Summary …On the story and background Literature review The origins The other Biology and the woman in her Body Conclusion Bibliography On The Writer 3 John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 1902. The town is a few miles from the Pacific Coast and near the fertile Salinas Valley—an area that was to be the background of much of his fiction. He studied marine biology at Stanford University but left without taking a degree and, after a series of laboring jobs, began to write. An attempt at a free-lance literary career in New York City failed, and he returned to California, continuing to write in a lonely cottage. Popular success came to him only in 1935 ith To tilla Flat. That ook s p o ise as o fi ed succeeding works—In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, and especially The Grapes of Wrath, a novel so powerful that it remains among the archetypes of American culture. Often set in California, “tei e k s late ooks i lude Cannery Row, The Wayward Bus, East of Eden, The Short Reign of Pippin IV, and Travels with Charley. He died in 1968, having won a Nobel Prize in 1962. In announcing the a a d, the “ edish A ade de la ed: He had o i d to be an unoffending comforter and entertainer. Instead, the topics he chose were serious and denunciatory, for instance the itte st ikes o Califo ia s f uit a d otto plantations. ... His literary power steadily gained impetus. ... The little masterpiece Of Mice and Men ... was followed by those incomparable short stories which he collected together in the volume The Long Valley. The way had now been paved for the great work ... the epic chronicle The G apes of W ath. (Steinbeck 1) Summary Written in 1938, here is a summary of the short story: It is i te i “ali as Valle , Califo ia. The su is ot shi i g, a d fog o e s the alle . O He Alle s foothill a h, the ha utti g a d sto i g has been finished, and the orchards are waiting for ai . Elisa Alle , He s ife, is o ki g i he flo e garden and sees her husband speaking with two cigarette-smoking strangers. Elisa is thirty-five years old, attractive and clear-eyed, although at the moment she is clad in a masculine gardening outfit with e s shoes a d a a s hat. He ap o o e s he d ess, a d glo es o e he ha ds. As she o ks away at her chrysanthemums, she steals occasional glances at the strange men. Her house, which stands nearby, is very clean. The strangers get into their Ford coupe and leave. Elisa looks down at the stems of her flowers, which she has kept entirely free of pests. Henry appears and praises her work. Elisa seems pleased and proud. Henry says he wishes she would turn her talents to the orchard. She responds eagerly to this suggestion, but it seems he was only joking. When she asks, he tells her that the men were from the Western Meat Company and bought thirty of his steers for a good price. He suggests they go to the town of Salinas for dinner and a movie to ele ate. He teases he , aski g hethe she d like to see the fights, a d she sa s she ould t. Henry leaves, and Elisa turns her attention back to her chrysanthemums. A wagon with a canvas top driven by a large bearded man appears on the road in the distance. A misspelled sign advertises the a s se i es as a ti ke ho epai s pots a d pa s. The ago tu s i to Elisa s a d. He dogs a d the a s dog s iff ea h othe , a d the ti ke akes a joke a out the fe o it of his a i al. Whe he gets out of the wagon, Elisa sees that he is big and not very old. He wears a ragged, dirty suit, and his hands are rough. They continue to make small talk, and Elisa is charmed when the tinker says he simply follows 4 good weather. He asks whether she has any work for him, and when she repeatedly says no, he whines, sa i g he has t had a usi ess a d is hu g . The he asks a out Elisa s h sa the u s, a d he annoyance vanishes. They discuss the flowers, and the tinker says that he has a customer who wants to raise chrysanthemums. Excited, Elisa says he can take her some shoots in a pot filled with damp sand. She takes off her hat and gloves and fills a red pot with soil and the shoots. Elisa gives the tinker instructions to pass along to the woman. She explains that the most care is needed he the uddi g egi s. “he lai s to ha e pla ti g ha ds a d a feel the flo e s as if she s o e ith them. She speaks from a kneeling position, growing impassioned. The tinker says he might know what she means, and Elisa inte upts hi to talk a out the sta s, hi h at ight a e d i e i to ou od a d a e hot a d sha p a d—lo el . “he ea hes out to tou h his pa t leg, ut stops efo e she does. He sa s su h thi gs a e ot as i e if ou ha e t eate . “o e ed, Elisa finds two pans for him to fix. As the tinker works, she asks him if he sleeps in the wagon. She says she wishes women could live the ki d of life he does. He sa s it ould t e suita le, a d she asks ho he k o s. Afte pa i g hi fift cents, she says that she can do the same work he does. He says his life would be lonesome and frightening for a woman. Before he leaves, she reminds him to keep the sand around the chrysanthemums damp. For a moment, he seems to forget that she gave him the flowers. Elisa watches the wagon trundle away, whispering to herself. She goes into the house and bathes, scrubbing her skin with pumice until it hurts. Then she examines her naked body in the mirror, pulling in her stomach and pushing out her chest, then observing her back. She dresses in new underwear and a dress and does her hair and makeup. Henry comes home and takes a bath. Elisa sets out his clothes and then goes to sit on the porch. When Henry emerges, he says that she looks nice, sounding surprised. She asks him what he ea s, a d he sa s she looks diffe e t, st o g a d happ . “he asks hat he ea s st o g. Co fused, he sa s that she s pla i g a ga e a d the explains that she looks like she could break a calf and eat it. Elisa loses her composure for a moment and then agrees with him. As the d i e alo g the oad to a d “ali as, Elisa sees a da k spot up ahead a d a t stop he self f o looki g at it, su e that it s a pile of dis a ded h sa the u shoots that the ti ke has th o a a . Elisa thinks that he could have at least disposed of them off the road, and then realizes he had to keep the pot. The pass the ti ke s ago , a d Elisa does t look. “he sa s she is looki g fo a d to di e . Henry says she is different again, but then says kindly that he should take her out more often. She asks whether they can have wine at dinner, and he says yes. Elisa says she has read that at the fights the men beat each other until their boxing gloves are soaked with blood. She asks whether women go to the fights, and He sa s that so e do a d that he ll take he to o e if she d like to go. “he de li es a d pulls he oat olla o e he fa e so that He a t see he i g. “pa k otes On the Story and its background 5 The Ch sa the u s Joh Steinbeck manifests the routine life of a woman and her scuffle to accept her role as a female. Eliza Allen, “tei e k s protagonist, is the symbol of the woman trying to escape her defined role in the society, a society that its dogmatic men treat women with disrespect. In the story, the male characters have been portrayed to treat Eliza not as an equal, while she might be more passionate, intelligent and even better, in general, in many aspects of life. In fact, a feminist application of Beauvoir would do a great justice to reading of the Chrysanthemums, since the background context of the story matches the feminist notions introduced by Beau oi i The “e o d “e . O e is ot o , ut athe e o es a o a . These ost uoted o ds of The “e o d “e e a e the centerpiece of first-wave feminism and the signature of thei autho , … . Their meaning, fleshed out i The “e o d “e s des iptio s of o e s dail li es, o e see ed o ious. The see ed to poi t to the difference between sex and gender. They seemed to indicate the ways in which human beings born ith agi as e e ha ituated a d i itiated i to the oles of adults alled o e . Ca idge Companion to Simone De Beauvoir, 248) Five years after the right of voting for women in France, The Second Sex was published in 1949. There are several reaso s as to h o e i F a e gai ed this ight late: . u til the id-twentieth century, a pro-natalist policy was widely supported by all major political parties, including the Communists and Socialists, in a bid to increase the birth rate and tackle a major depopulation crisis. Contraception and abortion were consequently both illegal, and there was huge political and social pressure on women to conform to the traditional roles of wife and mother. Astonishingly, French women were still considered legal minors until 1938, and it would take until the 1960s and 1970s for women to gain the right to contraception (1967), abortion (1974) and to engage in paid work and open a bank account without the authorization of their husband (1965). 2. Women as a voting block were perceived by many left-wing politicians (who were the most likely to support the campaign for female suffrage) to be more religious, so there was a widespread fear that, if women were given the right to vote, they would simply follow the conservative directives of the Catholic Church which opposed lefti g poli ies. Fi all , the o e s suff age o e e t as itself ot a ilita t a paig i F a e (precisely because of the strong influence of the Catholic Church over women) and was therefore less effective in achieving its aims (Duchen 1986: 3). This contrasted with the British suffrage campaign which, for many years, involved extensive direct political action, such as hunger strikes, acts of sabotage and violent self-sacrifice, such as that of E il Wildi g Da iso , ho hu led he self u de the Ki g s horse in a Derby Day race in 1913 (Anderson and Zinsser 1990: 363– . (Simone De Beauvoir, 50) In addition to these factors, another bitter fact was the circumscription of o e s auto o , like dismissing of all married women from their jobs, denouncing all non-childbearing women, and strengthening the sanctions in existing legislation which outlawed abortion and contraception. It was in the context such as this that for the first time, the honesty of gender roles, femininity, and being a real woman unflooded the discussion to the top. It was in such a context as this that for the first 6 time, the woman in society was distinguished from the woman at home! There was this urge to reestablish the lost sense of what it meant to be a woman but equal to the male gender! Literature Review In the book, Simone de Beauvoir by Ursula Tidd, we read more into the contemplation of the fact that one is not born but becomes a woman. In this book, the interpretation of the famously quoted line in the Second Sex, manifests the point that sexuality of human beings is not something in their nature, but what society and different value institutions in the society create and project in human beings. In Denise Dis a s article A Woman Bound by The Society, the general belief among feminists about becoming a woman, and acting according to the binary oppositions is reconfirmed: Throughout the story, Elisa suffers a regression from the masculine role she sees as equality to the feminine role she sees as submissive. Her frustration with the male dominated society causes her to let go of her dreams for liberation and to become what society expects her to be a passive woman. Steinbeck portrays women according to his time. Elisa is representative of the o e of the 's; She has become "the representative of the feminine ideal of equality and its inevitable defeat" (Sweet 213). (Dickmann, 2) My argument would be on the subject that what Beauvoir brings to the table has a vaster domain of meaning and Eliza is not at all the victim of passivity to the society, but the very Emblem of How it is to be a woman. In this paper, the effort Is to show that the constructed femininity, and the woman being the other, are all about the woman herself, and her decision for accepting her true-self and nature as it is or not; This nature of hers might be the intelligently emotional, and a wise phenomenon, however not that of a weak posture of a passive social woman! The Origins In The Second Sex, Beauvoir delivers a detailed study of the origins and endurance of the patriarchal oppression of women. She clarifies that from the start point of organized societies, men were created more powerful- physically speaking- and that their minds work more analytical confronting dangers, pain, or voids! Women were tangled in house work and raising children. Hence, men had enough free times to build the systems of power (politically, sociably, and all in all they became the masters of discourses.) According to the book Simone de Beauvoir, These systems, created by men, were in service to the men! Women have been obliged to adapt to this patriarchal system, which maintains 7 them in a subordinate position. Beauvoir continues that women have accepted the role of being a wife or mother throughout history because of these systems created by men. As a result, women have been traditionally prevented from working outside the home and, hence, have been obliged to attach themselves to a male breadwinner to ensure their survival and that of their children. Women have adapted to this state of affairs in a variety of ways which encourage i authe ti it to a lesse o g eate e te t. Beau oi argues that the way forward for women is to pursue economic independence through independent work and through a socialist organization of society, which would favor o e s e a ipatio a d autonomy. (Beauvoir, 53) Beauvoir continues her speech with a basic notion of freedom, and that how she thinks patriarchal societies have deprived women of reaching the free version of themselves. She adds: reaching that freedom is to transcend! She even pinpoints Hegelian notions of to have become, when she tries to demonstrate what it means when she says that women have become the OTHER to men. The Heideggarian being- with- others, is also another important point defining the role of the woman in defining her identity in relation with other human beings! In all the male writers who have written about female protagonists, I have not seen any one having the genius of Steinbeck in portraying a woman as A Woman! Steinbeck has totally touched and felt what Beauvoir meant being the other of the man. From the very beginning of the story, we have the description of weather, a romantic but well-chosen option of fog and rain: It as a ti e of uiet a d of aiti g […] the fa e s e e ildl hopeful of a good ai efo e lo g; But fog a d ai do ot go togethe ( Crane, 283) Fog and rain symbolize Eliza and Henry. It is a very smart imagery because the rain and the fog are not very different and they are from the same family, in fact, they recreate one another but at the same time cannot dissolve into each other. Again, this combination is a mildly gloomy one. However, the existence of rain in it is quite a helpful melody! Another interesting fact about the setting is Salinas Valley. Salinas Valley is the representation of femininity. At first, every approach outside it seems adventurous and hard. Looking closer proves it to be a heaven inside. (With farm, gardening and flowers, all symbolizing birth, productivity and peace.) Henry is the shadow of the man that Eliza attaches to but cannot approach since she does not hold the inner self and does not look back to her real female qualities. She withholds her inner self for becoming a woman. She thinks she is the woman but she is acting according to the musts and should. She gardens the chrysanthemums but does that with male gloves. She always covers her heart with something of the male quality because she somehow believes that could be the way to gain the equality she has lost. The truth beneath it is that she only gains flash-like satisfactions only when she embraces who she really is as a woman and those are very rare moments that she is showing her kindness. 8 The power of real manifestation is becoming a woman and that is what Steinbeck shows not to be negative at all but something lost in the confused values of the modern time. When Eliza is checking herself in the mirror, or when she is helping for the sake of being with other people and helping them, it is when she is getting close to her inner self. The other I The “e o d “e , the iologi al fa ts of o a s situatio are themselves not immune from masculinist bias on occasions, as we will see below. It is o th oti g he e that Beau oi a gues that o group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the Other over against itself – in other words, every time a group comes into existence, it positively differentiates itself from those not within its number. For example, the power dynamics of any school playground illustrate this separation of sel es f o othe s , as hild e fo g oups ased o perceived differences within the larger social g oup. Noti g Hegel s account of the master–sla e diale ti , Beau oi sa s that e fi d i consciousness itself a fundamental hostility towards every other consciousness, the subject can be posed only in being opposed – he sets himself up as the essential, as opposed to the other, the inessential, the o je t ““: 17). So the division of people into selves and others is fairly inevitable, but the specific relationship between men and women is of a special kind. (Beauvoir 55) Steinbeck is a true God in passionately painting how the discourse of inner desire can ignite fire! 9 She was kneeling on the ground looking up at him. Her breast swelled passionately. The man s eyes narrowed. He looked away self-consciously. Maybe I know, he said sometimes in the night in the wagon there… The other to Eliza is herself. She is keeping herself away from being what she truly should be, and that is a woman to her husband. Not to a male figure but to gain what she inanely desires. With Tinker, she feels superior and equal, there are things that are to her interest, but she does not diminish herself to the other she has always played for her husband. In another word, the woman becomes the other to the man when she sees herself as the other, when she first otherizes her own-self from what she wants and she is afraid of losing. The social construction of being a woman or becoming one comes to existence this place. Eliza does not care about social construction; it is why the setting is located around the wagon and at night. The eyes of the society are closed at what it is that is happening and Eliza is the sole person controlling her own self because she is not afraid of other people- the outcomes of the society- to manipulate her of becoming one with herself. Tinker in this scene is responding exactly to what Eliza is trying to gain, something very intricate in showing that Eliza is afraid of showing he real woman to her own husband, hence she is otherized to herself and to her own husband, Henry. Biology and the woman in her body In the Second Sex, Beauvoir manifests the reality of the body as a vehicle for experience. She denotes to Sartre notions of consciousness and the body and declares why there are problems to his ideas: The fi st p o le is that “a t e s ie of the od is athe a st a t. It neglects the lived experience of how we experience, and are sometimes encouraged to experience, our bodies. For example, his concept of the body in Being and Nothingness cannot account for the experience and power politics of living as a black transgendered person in a white supremacist patriarchy, which entail potentially oppressive implications on material, psychological and social levels. Beauvoir was precisely interested in how power elatio s go e this li ed e pe ie e of embodied subjectivity and how our body might be expressions of that experience in the world. The se o d elated p o le is that “a t e s a ou t te ds to ie the body as a passive instrument su je t to the i d s willful control. This neglects some of the sophisticated ways in which we can experience our bodies, psychologically and physiologically, and the relation of these experiences to socio-political bodily interdictions. …. Beauvoir largely agrees with Merleau-Po t s ie of the embodied subject and develops her own notion of the lived body and the represented body in the context of gender in The Second Sex. But Beauvoir helped to promote the view that her philosophy was lose to “a t e s tha Me leau-Po t s – for reasons of intellectual and emotional loyalty – and so, until 10 recently, these connections between the philosophies of Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty have been overlooked. In her account of female biology in The Second Sex, Beauvoir adapts Merleau-Po t s a gu e t ithi the o te t of ge de : Wo a , like a , is he od ; ut he od is so ethi g othe tha he self ““: . This ea s that o a s e pe ie e of e odi ent is separated from her transcendence and, in patriarchal society, which has t aditio all p o oted o a s o je tifi atio , she is e a ded fo alienating (or reducing) her transcendent subjectivity to her physicality. In short, patriarchy furthers its aims by encouraging women to experience themselves as docile bodies for male consumption. While Beau oi akes it lea i The “e o d “e that o a s alie atio i her body is not inevitable, her lurid portrayal of female biology nevertheless might appear rather deterministic. As Moi otes, fo Beau oi , women are the slaves of the species. Every biological process in the fe ale od is a isis o a t ial, a d the esult is al a s alie atio (Moi 1994: 165). ( Beauvoir 59) This process manifests itself in The chrysanthemums, too. There is a very close and entangled relationship between Eliza s unconsciousness and her body. In fact, her body is the greatest dubious point in whether she is being otherized or she is becoming the ultimate woman. In the most crucial and sensitive moments of the story, most of which are her confrontation with Tinker, or her image in the mirror, her body is the means to which she want to receive something. She objectifies herself for her own desires. She feels this alienation whenever she is consciously using her own body for the investment of her own needs. On the other hand, we see her covering herself in a manly cloth in the process of making herself invisible to the eyes of the ultimate man she feels otherized to, Henry, her husband. She does not dare to step forward from where she is standing in declaring her real sexual needs using her body to seduce her own husband! However, After the tinker leaves, Elisa bathes, scrubbing herself "with a little block of pumice, legs and thighs, loins and chest and arms, until her skin was scratched and red"( Steinbeck, 245). She tries to objectify herself after being able to once accept her own body as herself not an outward object. She freaks out of the reality of this experience so much that what she does after it is simply killing her own body. 11 Conclusion The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck is an unrepeated sample of a woman. Eliza is depicted so beautifully in her complexities, dualities and possibilities as a woman that one might not even come close to think she is the production of a man s mind! In fact, Eliza is the strong woman free of every otherness plaguing her through the male gaze. She is on the right track of refinding herself. Her encounter with Tinker and the experience of a true-self, is totally a show of what it is to be a woman! 12 Bibliography 1. Palmerino, Gregory J. "Steinbeck's 'The Chrysanthemums'." Explicator 62.3 (2004): 164-167. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Claire Carney Library. 2. Steinbeck, John. "The Chrysanthemums." The Seagull Reader Stories. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 437-448. 3. Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. Online Publications, 1-5 4. Beauvoir, Simone de. -(1946) Tous les hommes sont mortels, Paris: Gallimard. (Trans. E. Cameron and L. M. Friedman, All Men are Mortal (1995), London: Virago.) The “e o d “e : ea s late , “o iet ap s , i C. F a is a d F. Gontier (eds) : –85. T a s. Le Deu i e “e e, i gt-cinq ans 5. Butle , Judith “e a d ge de i “i o e de Beau oi s “e o d “e , i H l “i o e de Beau oi : Wit ess to a Ce tu , Yale F e h “tudies 72 e We zel ed. 6. A Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir, online publications 7. Tidd, Ursula, Simone de Beauvoir, Routledge Thinkers 13 14