blog 4

The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck and the Cathedral by Raymond Carver were two great stories. In Steinbeck's short story he uses alot of symbolism and gets the meaning across mostly how woman felt earlier in time when they werent looked at as equals to men. I got this from the fact that even as the story starts it even describes the ranch as being "Henry Allens foothill Ranch" even though he is married. As the story goes on there is a incident where the husband is talking to two guys in suits and made a buisness deal and didnt even include his wife and I think she didnt even know about it till after the fact and she asked HIM what the  two guys were there for, she wasnt treated as equal or partner in her relationship. I also think the flowers that Elisa planted symbolized her strength and intellegence as a woman because chrysanthemums are one of the tallest growing flowers and the strongest, and in the story it even describes her scissors as powerful and the stems seem to easy and small for her energy, I think that also symbolizes her as being a strong woman. Also the clothing, her outfit she used to garden, a mans black hat, clod-hopper shoes, and a big apron, you associate all this with masculine, in turn associate it with a man meaning intellegent, strong. And independent. The meaning of these clothes on Elisa was the idea that she and all women are as capable as men. When her husband left and the guy came and talked about all the things he did like fix pans and sharpen items and stuff I think is when we got a real look at Elisa's independence, will, and power,  she got really mad and defensive when the man first pulled up and asked her about directions and she told him, but I felt that he sort of questioned her answer when he first said "it might surprise you what them beast can pull or when he said " I aint in no hurry" I just felt everything she was saying he disagreed. I also feel that Elisa is sick of being treated like an inferior just because she is a woman and I don't see it when she is interacting with her husband but when she interacts  with the traveler man. I see this in some of her reactions like when he said he sharpened knives she comment the fact her knife was already sharpened and she doesn't need his help I also think the meaning for this was  she is her own woman and can handle her own. Another symbolic meaning in the story was when she told the drifter guy how to plant and raise these chrysanthemum flowers, her whole attitude changed after that " her eyes grew alert and eager" in this moment explaining the process of taking care of the flower, the process, water it, and how to transfer it I felt that was her strength and gift and I think it was meant to represent woman as a whole like look I am smart, I can do something on my own woman can stand up tall and strong just like the flower. Good story! Another story was the Cathedral which I really  loved, I felt this story meaning focused more on human ignorance and also acceptance. The narrator in the Cathedral is the husband and I know this because he says I a lot, through this whole story I think the husband is a bastard and he treats his wife like he doesn't love he'd in my opinion, more like he just like her if that. I see this because even at the beginning he talks about her friendship with this blind man and she wrote a poem and he goes on to say "I can remember I don't think much of the poem, anyway" throughout the story he is real dismissive about anything not containing to him like when he said he was gonna take the blind man bowling and he asked if his wife was a negro because her name was Beulah and he wasn't really compassionate about the wife passing. He was just a real ignorant shallow bastard. I believe the irony in the story was that the the friend was technically blind but the husband was the one that was really "blind" to his own ignorance. Saying things like blind people don't smoke and how can he be married to someone you can't see. I believe a really crucial time in the stories meaning was the incident when the husband asked the blind man if he had a tv, and to me this represented the period of time when there was racial discrimination laws and I also knew when the husband uses the word negro that it's during a time when segregation was "right", and when the blind man answered he has two and he always turns in the colored tv and for me I think that represents change and when he speaks bout the black and white he calls it old like in old ways we need to change. I don't know what I take from the ending I think after getting to know the blind man the husband kind of realized he misjudged and he is wrong and that was him closing his eyes and when he said "it's really something" but that's what I got from that.