Comparing Stories: The Astronomers Wife & The Chrysanthemums :: essays research papers

Recently, I saw a movie about female tennis champion Billie Jean King, and although I have never been into the feminist movement (neither can I say that I quite understand it), her character woke up some other kind of sensitivity in me. After this to me meaningful change I could not help myself not to notice different approaches of John Steinbeck and Kay Boyle to the similar thematic. They both deal with marital relationships and it was quite interesting to sensible horizon lives of ordinary married couples through both male and female eyes. While Steinbeck opens his story describing the Salinas Valley in December metaphorically referring to the Elisas character, Boyle jumps directly to Mrs. Amess inner world. Although both writers give us pretty clear picture of their characters, Boyle does it with more emotions aiming our feelings immediately, unlike Steinbeck who leaves us more space to call back about Elisa Allen. Mrs. Ames from The Astronomers Wife and Elisa Allen from T he Chrysanthemums, 2 women in their best ages, did share similar lives. They were loyal wives, of decent beauty and advantageously manners. They were married for some time, without any children and they were fighting the dullness of their marriages. At first, it looked like they were just caught in marriage monotony, but after the surface has been scratched deeper, it was clear that these two women were crying for attention but they had different reasons.While Boyle describes Mrs. Ames as elegant, gentle, and quiet, Steinbeck gives to Elisa more strength. Her face was lean and strong, and her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume. Both women find their own ways to cover miss of happiness in their everyday lives. The astronomers wife is managing the firm finding the silliest things to keep her busy from the removal of the spot left there from dinner on the astronomers vest to the severe trashing of the mayonnaise for dejeuner. Elisa spends her days in garden r aising chrysanthemums bigger than anybody around here. The fact that these two women did not have any children can mislead us to the conclusion that they were both trying to satisfy the instincts they were probably having at the age of thirty-five. While this is the case with Elisa, the astronomers wife had different problem the lack of communication with her husband and incapability to understand the world he was in.