Chrysanthemums Gender Roles

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The Role of Gender Roles
Gender roles have played a part in society and culture since the beginning of time. A gender role is defined as “shared expectations (about appropriate qualities and behaviors) that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified gender” (Eagly 12). Not only are our lives impacted by gender-specific expectations, but so are characters in literary pieces that often times portray our own suppressions in life. As society has changed over the years, so have the standards that both sexes must uphold. John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” share a similar theme. In both stories the main characters, Elisa and Louise, endure common subjugations from society and from those around them. The difference in …show more content…
The narrator points out that “she did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (Chopin 57). Instead, she embraces the “precession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (Chopin 57). Even Louise’s sister, Josephine, expects Louise to “make herself ill,” from the horrible grief she must be feeling (Chopin 58). Louise is expected to feel this way, because that is what is socially appropriate. Just as the tinker expects Elisa to not be able to handle the life on the road as he does, stating “It ain’t the right kind of life for a woman,” yet she retorts confidently, “I could show you what a woman might do” (Steinbeck 107). Just as well, when Henry asks Elisa in a “joking tone,” if she wants to attend the fights, he expects that she would not, yet she had read of “how the fighting gloves get heavy and soggy with blood” (Steinbeck 104-9). These expectations do not affect them as significantly as the emotional frustrations that both Louise and Elisa
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