Arguing About Chrysanthemums By studying the various schools of criticism and using them to decipher the inner workings of novels, short stories, and poems, it becomes apparent that they all share one common factor: a theme. The theme of a story is the general idea or insight, which is revealed by the entire story (Kennedy, 195). While there are many themes that seem similar, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find stories with identical themes. Two stories with similar themes, however, are "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck and "The YellowWallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These two stories show the damage caused by male domination in the past. The story "The Chrysanthemums" offers a glimpse of its author's life; John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. The location of the story bears a striking resemblance to the Salinas where Steinbeck was born and raised. “Salinas was a typical American town, [different] only in location and in some distinctive features” (McCarthy 3). The story begins by showing the setting: "The high flannel-gray fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and the rest of the world." While this does not directly illustrate the theme, the setting plays a role in the construction of Elisa Allen's "prison". ." The main protagonist of "The Chrysanthemums", Elisa Allen, is a middle-aged housewife who also has a passion for growing chrysanthemums. This passion expressed in planting these flowers brings out the repressed romance in her life. The fact of having no children seems to have sublimated her maternal instincts by producing extraordinary flowers. However, “the plants and flowers cannot make up for the t… middle of the paper… Nius soon tells Ophelia that she must seek out Hamlet. Much to her dismay, Hamlet rejects her, and this begins a downward spiral. Ophelia begins to act depressed and everyone begins to think that she has gone mad. Unfortunately, all the negative light placed on Ophelia leads to her death. certain whether she was killed or whether she actually committed suicide, but she came to a tragic end by drowning. The events in "Hamlet" and "The Chrysanthemums", although different in appearance, show a very similar issue shown in both situations to wreak havoc on women's emotions by showing respect and obedience to male characters, women actually hurt themselves This theme of male dominance destroying women's psyches has been and will continue to be a major theme in the literature.