Chrysanthemums
Submitted by Trudy Schrandt (profile)

Title and Author: Chrysanthemums (full text) by John Steinbeck
Genre: Short story
Themes: Unfulfilled character/absence of recognition for self-worth, desire to reach for more
Class Type: Male, different age groups, most with chemical dependency or violence issues. Just as valuable, or maybe even more so, for a woman's group

Elisa is the middle-aged wife of a well-to-do farmer in the Salinas Valley in California. They have a good marriage and truly care for one another and each other's (understood) needs. She has her defined chores and responsibilities, but she is realizing that she is capable of so much more than what she is currently allowed to do or be. Her environment is sterile, and the clothes she wears do anything but point out her femininity. Her future is predictable and mundane. Her one outlet is raising chrysanthemums.

When a tinker arrives, he tells her of his world on the road. This fascinates her and allows her to romanticize about what she is missing. He is cunning and perceives her situation. By encouraging her in her planting, he is able to lead her in to a full sense of what her gardening ability means to her and what she hopes the future could hold. He allows her to define her dreams of self-worth. She forces upon him some of her flowers for him to take to another customer outside of the valley. Fully able to perform any duties that the peddler can, Elisa allows him to fix an old pan in payment for what he has given her. While she cannot accompany him, she can dream. Watching him leave, she observes that, "There is a bright direction. There's glowing there."

Energized, she will accompany her husband into town as a celebration for selling some cattle and, by extension, the celebration of her own skills, at least in her imagination, and a different type of life. She bathes with the same power that she would have used to clean their home. Her femininity is on full display, and her husband is both surprised and pleased.

On the way into town, however, she sees the very flowers that symbolized her growth and dreams for the future discarded on the road. She is shattered by the callousness of the tinker. This is a form of rape for Elisa. Her feelings of confidence and expectation have been shattered. She has feeling of violence and anger and jokingly asks to go to a prizefight wondering if men hurt men. Try as she may, her body collapses into defeat. Her dream has been destroyed, and she sees her future as dreadful and unfulfilled.

Approach: Without actually bring up the Vegetation Myth, I do use this as a basis for teaching the story.

--Winter: the setting is dark and dismal; Elisa is covered up and in a spiritual hibernation; there is a "lid" on the valley
--Spring: the tinker arrives bring a breath of fresh air; there is life in the ground that Elisa works in; the constellations are those of the spring; there are new ideas and new hopes that "spring" forth for Elisa; even her sexual desires are awakened
--Summer: as she prepares for the evening, her toileting is robust and full of life; even her husband notes her "change"; the future is in full bloom (although only an ideal)
--Fall: the flowers are dead on the road; she is violated and feels the utter depression of having lost; she "dies" to a sheltered and pre-defined existence as she pulls her coat up over her head and they continue on with their old existence.

As we begin discussion, I ask for their descriptions of the setting and then ask what feeling they derive from this. They will always come back with a death-like description. This is the springboard to then construct the birth, life, and death steps that follow.

We then spend a good deal of time discussing things that occur in our lives that bring about the same cycle. More importantly, we discuss what we need to do to take our dreams (spring) and make them real (summer) so that we don't suffer a fall-like existence. We also discuss what we can do if a dream cannot become a reality, both short-term and long-term.

I ask what are the ways that disappointments can be used to grow instead of become dormant. Elisa is a type of failed character. What do they have to do with their lives that will allow them to succeed? This will fill the remainder of our time and often spill over a bit. It is helpful in defining what happens to dreams that don't go our way, aren't well defined, or aren't obtainable. It is more helpful in discussing how to set realistic expectations and then build on them. The idea of small victories as opposed to large advances can also be discussed.