chrysanthemums by steinbeck and paul s
Excerpt via Term Newspaper:
Chrysanthemums” by Ruben Steinbeck, and “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather. Especially, it will discuss a thematic connection involving the two reports. These two brief stories spotlight the themes of loneliness, unfulfilled needs, and dreams. Both primary characters have dreams of a thing better which might be never realized, and they live tragic and unfulfilled lives because of this. These stories may well not seem related, but underneath two completely different characters lays the same standard problem – a dreamer’s soul that may be unfulfilled and desperately unsatisfied with actual life.
Themes in Two Related Short Reports
These two brief stories seem to be totally unrelated at first glance, but underlying two very different character types is a common theme of dreams, unfulfilled desires, and loneliness. Paul in “Paul’s Case” can be described as lonely and misunderstood son whose only joys are the theatre and the arts. He loves to observe performances, it is the only period he seems entirely with your life. “He got the feeling of not being able to leave down, of its getting impossible to give up this delicious excitement that has been the only thing that could be called living at all” (Cather). The others of his life is blackness, despair, and loneliness, since no one really understands him and his emotional needs. This individual lives in a dream world where the only good things are the movie theater and his close friends who are actors or work in the theater, and everything else can be ugly and forlorn. “There it was, what be wished – tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas mimodrame – but mocking state of mind stood guard at the doorways, and, as the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered if he were destined often to shiver in the black night exterior, looking up for it” (Cather). Paul really was destined to “look up at that, ” mainly because once he finds “it” he cannot hold on to this, and his life is not better for it.
The theme of isolation, unfulfilled desires, and dreams is stiched throughout this kind of entire account, and it leads to the inevitable conclusion that often originates from living in ideal world. Paul’s dreams surpass his lifestyle, and he can never meet the dreams he provides for himself. He are not able to cope with his real life; he finds it ugly and depressing. “He got into contact with it tonight with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking back forever in ugliness and commonness that he had constantly had when he came home” (Cather). Once he leaves his home in Maryland, he can never return, as they has lived the good your life, and he can never return to the boring life of his friends and family. There is something inside Paul which could never be satisfied with second best or poor, which is why this individual loves the theater plus the fantasy of it so much. “It was not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, however the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and strong spirit within him; something which struggled there like the einstein (umgangssprachlich) in the container found by Arab fisherman” (Cather).
In “The Chrysanthemums, ” Elisa Allen is at first glance far unlike Paul wonderful troubles. Nevertheless , just like Paul, Elisa can be lonely and has desires for a different lifestyle. She basically envies the tinker’s independence and his capability to simply grab and push wherever this individual wants when he desires. “It has to be nice, ‘ she said. ‘It should be very nice. I wish women may do such things'” (Steinbeck). Elisa’s a lot more unfulfilled, the girl with desperately disappointed, and in this kind of, she and Paul are very alike. The theme of isolation and dreams unfulfilled is definitely woven into “The Chrysanthemums” just as it is woven in “Paul’s Circumstance. ” The two characters present what can happen when solitude takes over, as well as the people surrounding them tend not to take the time to understand their needs and wants. The two characters will be sad and pathetic, and seem to don’t have any choices within their lives, due to constraints positioned on them by simply others.
When Paul is constrained by his grow older and society’s expectations for him, Elisa is limited by society’s expectations for her, too. Ladies did not elope to be tinkers, and youthful boys would not grow about be actors, they were raised to follow their particular fathers in corporate and sector. This is another underlying idea
