a)In my opinion Elisa's asking for wine is a way to escape the dreams and illusions that she had made early before during the conversation with the traveler.In her mind she was imagining how life would be if she would escape from the fence that always surrounded her.Her asking for wine demonstrates her acceptance for the life that she is having because her illusions faded away in the moment she saw the sprouts that she gave to the traveler and the other contents of the pot dumped in the road.She feels disappointed,fooled around and she loses her self-confidence.She now understands that her life is not going to change and she wants to make an effort in saving her marriage and give rebirth to the passion of her marriage.
b)Her sudden interest in prize fights is just an effort to understanding if she could take part in a man's world and if she could withstand it.She wants to know if other women go as well to understand if she could put up with all that anger,strength,fight and other masculine things.In the moment that her husband says that other women go as well she understands that women can also put up with these things but she says no to the invite because she loses her interest of being part of a man's world.She represses her feelings and accepts to go on with the kind of life that she had until now.A typical married woman taking care of her garden and her husband.
8.In a sentence,try to state this short story's theme.
In my opinion this short story's theme is: The desire of equality between women and men and the oppression of women in a man's world.
9.Why are Elisa Allen's chrysanthemums so important to this story?Sum up what you understand them to mean?
The chrysanthemums symbolize a lot of things in this story.They symbolize Elisa's whole world.She lives in a virtual world where everything she has are those chrysanthemums.Also,by the way she takes care of them and by the importance she gives to them i think that they represent the children she never had.She is proud to have the best chrysanthemums in the area like a mother would be proud to have the best children.She protects them with a wire fence by the other animals and protects them from worms by destroying and not allowing them to get anywhere near the chrysanthemums like a mother would do anything to protect her children.
Also the chrysanthemums symbolize Elisa's beauty and her femininity.Elisa's passionate involvement with the process of planting becomes an expression of all the suppressed romance in her life.When the traveler notices her flowers she feels like he has noticed her,like he has noticed her beauty and her sensuality.She offers herself to him but he disdains her. The Chrysanthemums is understood to be the salvation or a place where to escape from the reality of those years.Most of women at that time had nothing else but gardening,farming or house holding.They lived in a man's world oppressed by men and they escaped from this reality dedicating themselves to other things,like Elisa did with the Chrysanthemums.
