An analysis of two women and their stories Essay

An analysis of two women and their stories - Essay Example The two women lived in a time when society was male-dominant. A woman's place was relegated to home and hearth and her entire existence revolved around the needs of her husband. Consequently Elisa Allen and the American wife are filled with a craving for some meaning in their lives and needs so powerful that it threatens to overwhelm them. They yearn for personal happiness that has been denied to them by marriage and society. Steinbeck's opening lines, "The high gray-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley of a closed pot" capture Elisa's plight beautifully. She is shut off from the rest of the world and it seems to her like the fog will never lift. Elisa's husband means well but he is insensitive to her secret yearning and therefore he fails her. Her boundless energy is poured in concentrated amounts to numerous household chores and her beloved chrysanthemums but there is always a part of her which longs to rise above the low expectations society has for women. Thus she is a veritable cauldron, bubbling over with hope for something better than her life has to offer. Similarly Hemingway's protagonist is trapped in a loveless marriage with a controlling and negle