Theme Of Imagery In The Chrysanthemums

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”.

The narrator described the setting in the beginning as “twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight” (Steinbeck 1), but later on he stated that “the sun had left the valley” (Steinbeck 99). These quotes foreshadow what is going to happen later in the story because of their relation to dreams and fate. Steinbeck uses sunlight to represent dreams and he uses darkness to represent fate. The characteristics of a dream and sunlight both consist of beauty, happiness, and brightness ahead. Darkness and fate are known for their scary realities.

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.

The tone of chapter 11 in John Steinbeck's, “The Grapes of Wrath,” is sympathetic, sad and hopeless. His word choice and syntax show how the sad houses were left to decay in the weather. His use of descriptive words paints a picture in the reader's mind. As each paragraph unfolds, new details come to life and adds to the imagery. While it may seem unimportant, this intercalary chapter shows how the effects of the great depression affected common households.

The author uses the marigolds as a symbol but, their meaning varies between each character. To a young Lizabeth , the marigolds symbolise beauty in a place that it doesn't belong. These beautiful flowers anger a young Lizabeth because she thinks they didn’t belong in the old dusty town she grew up in. To an adult Lizabeth these flowers hold a different meaning, they now represent hope to her. These flowers hold a different meaning to Miss Lottie, to her they represented what was left of love, hope, and beauty in her life.

Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.

The image that Dorothea Lange captured of a fearful and desperate weather-beaten woman, with her three children, has become the ideal representation of the desperation and hardships that many families have gone through during the Great Depression in America. In the article “ The Harvest Gypsies”, John Steinbeck portrays the desperation when he declares “ The father and mother now feel that paralyzed with numbness with which the mind protects itself against too much sorrow and too much pain” (Steinbeck n. pag.).When no food could be grown and no money could be made, entire families packed up everything they had and began the journey to California. Without even looking back at the past, many families left their hometown farms , only to end

The Sign of the Chrysanthemum- Katherine Paterson The novel The Sign of the Chrysanthemum by Katherine Paterson is a story a sef boy named Muna who runs away from his manor to the capital city of 12th century feudal Japan, Kyoto, in search of his samurai father. I will discuss the primes of social structure and politics. Katherine Paterson’s The Sign of the Chrysanthemum accurately portrays the Heiji Disturbance and the status of craftsmen and ronins.

There is beauty in life for those who choose to see it. The Marigold is a story that is about the time of the Great Depression and how people were growing up in poverty with no shoes, little to no clothing, and barely a roof over their heads literally. The theme is see the good in little things for those that do see it. The marigolds were a symbol of beauty in all of the ugliness that was around them but at the time Elizabeth could not see it until it was too late. The title of the book is Marigolds short story by Eugenia Collier and is historical fiction.

Gray with a flannel fog of winter describes the Salinas Valley where Elisa lives and the dress and manners she has on her ranch in the foothills. Confined by the dark fog that restricts the valley and the surrounding mountains like a “lid placed on a pot,” she and the valley have no sunshine, no happiness, no noise, and no warmth. While the Allen ranch is clean and organized, a feeling of oppression and entrapment is felt in the physical setting and is seen in the development of the character Elisa. The valley, “Closed off” by the winter fog and isolated from other life, Elisa is also trapped and closed off in a life behind her garden gates.

The novel Flowers for Algernon written by Daniel Keyes effectively explores the complex human experiences of disability and the impact that it has on individuals and society through its three major themes; Self-realisation , Alienation and loneliness and treatment of the mentally disabled by society. Through these themes this response will highlight the difficulties experienced by people with disabilities and the people in their lives. The first theme in Flowers for Algernon is self-realisation. Charlie’s new found knowledge has allowed him to have the ability to voice his needs and wants for understanding, acceptance, and love.

In the short story “The Flowers”, Alice Walker sufficiently prepares the reader for the texts surprise ending while also displaying the gradual loss of Myop’s innocence. The author uses literary devices like imagery, setting, and diction to convey her overall theme of coming of age because of the awareness of society's behavior.     At the beguining of the story the author makes use of proper and necessary diction to create a euphoric and blissful aura. The character Myop “skipped lightly” while walker describes the harvests and how is causes “excited little tremors to run up her jaws.”. This is an introduction of the childlike innocence present in the main character.

However, there are deficient expressions of femininity. Through the use of the symbol of the red tulips In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood shows how flowers are given special attention as objects; these flowers can grow at a time. However, not a lot of women can. The overall passage in this passage is the handmaids are parallel to a red tulip. The author includes this chapter in her book to show everybody has their own purpose in society.

Through using the farm to represent the American Dream, Steinbeck brings forward issues from difficulties the mentally ill have to prejudices against African Americans. Lennie’s illness did not take away from his quality of work, but other men’s attitudes towards him made keeping a job more difficult, hindering his American Dream. Lennie and George’s previous job had been at Weed until Lennie had gotten into trouble.

In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the chapters alternate between two perspectives of a story. One chapter focuses on the tenants as a whole, while the other chapter focuses specifically of a family of tenants, the Joads, and their journey to California. Chapter 5 is the former and Steinbeck does an excellent job of omniscient third person point of view to describe the situation. Chapter 5’s main idea is to set the conflict and let the readers make connections between Steinbeck’s alternating chapters with foreshadowing. Steinbeck is effectual in letting readers make connections both to the world and the text itself with the use of exposition, and symbolism.