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Elisa has a problem; shes a woman in a mans world. She wants to do things that any man would do, things that any woman could do. Things she can do. Sadly, she is as repressed by societal norms as the Salinas Valley is repressed by the fog.
Unlike the valley, which will get sunlight eventually, she has been defeated by the men in her life, even the men just passing through. Elisa finds joy in horticulture; she has what she calls planters hands. She grows impressive flowers, chrysanthemums, with large blooms. Even her husband is impressed with her gift, but not impressed enough to let her try her hand in the orchard.
He offers her the opportunity, but only jokingly. She wears her hat, apron and gloves to shield her from her work because its only right that a woman not be exposed to such things as dirt and labor, or isnt it? When her husband is not around the gloves are off, her fingers are in the soil working fervently, getting dirty, not caring and only when he returns does she straighten her back and don the gloves. No one can say that Elisa doesnt try to conform to what the world thinks she should be. She denies herself her interests, like the boxing shes read about on her own, but very properly turns down offers to go see. Its the offers her husband makes, like the offer to go to the fights or the offer to work in the orchard, offers made in jest, that help keep Elisa down.
They turn her desires and interests into jokes. When Elisa meets the pot-mender she puts her hope into him. She hopes she has met someone who sees her as a talented and useful woman. She opens herself to him as she never has to her husband. She explains her planters hands with a passion that we all know has nothing to do with flowers. She reaches out to him, literally, but realizes she has grasped at nothing.
His interest is feigned only to meet his own business needs. Only after he has it fifty cents from her does he dash the spirit of the woman hes dealing with. Elisa is left to feel ashamed for allowing herself to be used and suckered. Elisa's problem, her repression of her unmet potential, isnt entirely the fault of the men around her.
She allowed herself to fall into the gender roles that the men around her believed in. Just as when her husband offered, in earnest, to take her to the fights and she declined, so have generations of women denied themselves their wants in order to conform to mens ideas. She cant be blamed for trying her best to function in a system she was born into; it is generations of women throughout history who have allowed this system to come into being who are also to blame.
Free research essays on topics related to: elisa, impressed, offers, orchard, gloves
Research essay sample on Generations Of Women Planters Hands Elisa
