In D. H. Lawrence's short story "Odour of Chrysanthemums," he attempts to portray the antagonism between the natural world and the mechanical world. Industrialization, originally a project aiming at emancipating humankind, turns out to become a merciless monster which devours human beings and alienates them from their essential qualities. Technology's promise of happiness and peace is bankrupt. Machines, rather than an emacipator of humankind, become war machines or devices used by human beings to kill or to exploit their fellow human beings. This is the epochal milieu of the production of modernist literature and arts; writers unanimously felt pessimistic about Western culture which subscribed to the myth of progress and grotesquely turned into irrationality and barbarism.
Enclosed is the picture (source: http://www.onlineinvestingai.com/blog/2009/04/27/wage-slave-freedom-hard-work-never-works/) of three Welsh coal miners who are just up from the pits after a day's work in coal mine in Wales. Look at the picture and try to feel the pain and disenchantment of Elizabeth the wife. Can you imagine the reasons why her miner husband Walter turns into an abusive and angry drunkard? What kind of sentimental reasons does Elizabeth have when she seems to care so much about the presence of pink chrysanthemums throughout the story?
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By reading through the entire story, I suppose I do have a clear idea that why does Elizabeth’s husband Walter end up as such a drunken a**hole from a promising young lad who used to be so full of dreams.
Walter, unfortunately, is offered nothing but only one single choice – a coalminer – at that time. He then has to work his ass so f**king hard all day with only little payment and it appears that he is likely stuck in this sort of job forever.
Since no promotion, no salary rising, and most importantly, no “way” out has been provided in the path of coalmining, how could a guy be expected to have passion on what he’s doing while he has to work all day in this endless nightmare that doesn’t guarantee him future?
True, he still has to make a living and feed his family even in such a condition. However, under pressure of family and endless work with small payment, there is nothing for him to do but taking alcohol as much as he can to escape from those kinds of problems. Men prefer to find ways to relax themselves while struggling at something, I understand that.
As for Elizabeth’s feelings towards the pink chrysanthemums, first, we all know that it’s the very flower she received from Walter as a wedding gift. Even she has been disappointing at her husband by getting drunk and coming home late almost every single night, her love to him somehow still remains inside her heart. Since the flowers symbolize Walter’s love to her, she takes care of them preciously.
Also, chrysanthemums symbolize “death”; they are the kind of flowers that are to be present during funerals. At the middle of the story, Elizabeth worries about her husband for his “unusual” delay of coming home. When she hears that her husband has had an accident, she somehow gets a bad feeling about this. I assume she is afraid that what chrysanthemums symbolize could be her husband’s eternal fate.
It appears that Elizabeth takes the chrysanthemums with both care and fear.
Just a reminder: this is your homework. Improper words such as "a**hole" and "f**king" cannot appear in your assignment. Please watch out your words and phrases.
Forced by the big environment, the rapid growth on industrialization brings many side effects to people. However, her husband Walter is one of the victims. He has no choice but to work in order to raise a family. The long term stay in the pit makes Walter feel bored and exhausted. Increasingly, the gloomy atmosphere filled in his life and he wants to find some consolation to relax his mind.
The short lifetime of the Chrysanthemums makes Elizabeth think of her own marriage. Many good times along with her husband is so short and easily fade away. The presence of the Chrysanthemums also recalled the beautiful memory of her and her husband. However, the reality and dream are always opposite. Due to the oppression of the realistic world, she can’t find way to combat so she has to accept it.
Wow, the picture gave me a fright; guys in that photo are like zombies in Resident Evil.
Okay, come back to the subject, what might be the reason I think Walter becomes a drunkard? Well, many people do that, don't they? Just like smoking or taking drugs, drinking is as well a way which people yearn to find relieve, though they are quite not healthy. From my point of view, being a miner not only need to find a "way" to relax because a miner is always in dark pits, which make people have a sense of despair, but also he is doing the same thing always. Sure he needs to find some way to relax in that circumstance. I think that's why Walter becomes a drunkard. As for the flower, I am not quite sure. However, the flower itself presents "death", so I think Elizabeth blames the flower for bringing her husband's death but as well likes it a lot since it was given by Walter, which might means his love for her. A "complex complex."
This picture makes me have goose bumps. There must be huge different between the world I live in. They are not like human beings anymore. It reminds me a famous artwork of Honore Daumier called “TheThird-class Carriage”. In the narrow carriage, people sit shoulder near shoulder, and everyone looks tired. The faces of three miners in the picture are stained by earth. It’s like they are in a different world, like they are not human anymore. Obviously, no one wants to live like a zombie. But life makes them so. When Mrs. Bates are talking about young Walter, we can see how normal he was, and contrast to the dirty and violent husband, it is like a different person. And the reason why Elisabeth seems to care much about her pink chrysanthemums is because it symbols her dream and her good time of life. When the carrier broke her vase of chrysanthemums, it was like her dream was also knocked off.
In the story,Walter has to work hard to raise the whole family. It seems that there's nothing he can do except for working all day in the mine. He spends most of the time in the darkness. He can't choose the work he does,all he can do is just trying to get the money so he can support his family. Because of the pressure of raising family, he has to find a way to let out his feelings,which is why he chooses to drink. Drinking is a way to make him feel relaxed and probably also help him forget about the pressure of making money for the family.
For Elizabeth, when she thinks of the chrysanthemums, she thinks of her marriage,which she thinks is an unhappy one for her. Although the chrysanthemums also makes her think of the time when her husband married her. The chrysanthemums is sort of the mixed feelings of Elizabeth.
Walter was a victim of the industrialization. Staying at this pressure a long time makes his value low-spirited. Therefore he chose to drink to console with his feeling.
And Elizabeth is the dreary deadness and the disillusionment of the protagonist. She became towards reality to her life and her marriage, when she was confronted with the reality of her husband did she realize that she never knew him. After her husband was smothered in the mine, she recognized that the smell of the chrysanthemums was really the smell of death.
The picture reveals the attitude that the coal miner about life. I can even feel that they don’t even want to work in the coal mine, because their eyes are filled with desperation, hopeless and anger. Besides, the way they twist their neck and the way they stare at the camera shows that the only dignity of them was to stay in that dark and dig the mine to earn the money for their family. Their life was no entertainment but a lot of pressure of supporting the family expense.
Thanks for the alcohol, such a victim like Walter can relieve from that pressure a little while. However it turns him into a drunkard that Elizabeth can even recognize. In the end of the story, Walter has been smothered by a fall of coal. Like his wife, Elizabeth, has been smothered by him and the odour of chrysanthemums.
In industrialized society, machines replace human beings because capitalists prefer the former to the latter, so workers have to struggle to do dirty tasks that are under the ground in order to support their family and keep alive. After working, they will go to barrooms to abandon themselves. In our eyes, their behaviors may be rude; however, D. H. Lawrence thought that it is the genuine humanity which is devoured by the mechanical world. For example, the male protagonist, Walter, turns out to be a furious drunkard. He feels so tired and unhappy doing such a boring job under the ground. Besides, when mining, he is as poor as a bird in a cage. He just knows he is mining and mining all day long. He cannot do what he really wants. How pathetic Walter is!
Chrysanthemums are beautiful and only blossom in the autumn. Chrysanthemums are represented as the transient beauty. The color, pink, is combined with “white” and ”red”. The white is purity and the red is passion. These two things in "Odour of Chrysanthemums" are in the name of human nature and yarn respectively. For Elizabeth, pink chrysanthemums are on behalf of a dream of her true love. Nevertheless, she loses her dream. She yearns to married to a rich man because she is from a better status quo, but she cannot. Moreover, Elizabeth looks down upon those on low class. Elizabeth speaks in a formal way throughout the story. Therefore, by and large, both Walter and Elizabeth are deplorable.
As coal miners, life is very difficult. They are exposed to danger because of the working environment. Everyday they watch their colleagues die; actually, they are kinds of survivals after daily working. It seems that Walter and other workers are appendages of machines and the job. This is the life drives Walter away to escape from the reality: hard working, dangerous as well as dusk working environment and gloomy future. By dirking, Walter can numb himself and forget the crucial status quo.
Elizabeth, however, doesn't realize the reason why Walter banishes himself. And she still holds beautiful dream about marriage and life. Even if they are very poor, Elizabeth, a mother and a wife, tries hard to maintain that there is something respectable. The chrysanthemums represents that Elizabeth desire for things graceful and beautiful. It's a romantic illusion. Nonetheless, the burden to raise a family and the cruelty of reality crush Elizabeth's dream including Walter's. Because Elizabeth has lost dreams of her life, she care so much about the chrysanthemums, which seems to be a fancy existence.
After I looked the picture, I can imagine why Walter turns into an abusive and angry drunkard. In the picture, the miners’ faces are all dirty and they look just like ghosts crawled from the deepest portion of the wicket. In the story, it says that Walter was once a happy and handsome lad. But in the dim, dirty environment, he became abusive and escaped the reality by being drunk.
In the story, the chrysanthemums let Elizabeth recalls the happy memories with Walter but also remind her how her life become. As she realized the death of Walter, she asked herself who is she? I think that at the end, she finally realized that she didn’t know well about her husband.
Because of the industrialization, human beings become inhuman. People who live in the mine area, they work in the pits all day in order to raise their family.
The society changed and influenced Walter’s life and he was forced to be an abusive and angry drunkard by the mechanical world. His life filled with lots of pressure and only until he died, he restored his dignity because of the death. It’s a tragic in human’s life. People without dignity and couldn’t be respect by others it means that their life is useless.
They didn’t dare to have a dream because the society deprived the right and it’s just like an illusion if they keep the dream. But for Elizabeth, she still wanted to maintain the dream and she picked up the chrysanthemums and put it in her apron. She wanted to keep the beautiful illusion in her mind even though she was in that society which machine replaced the human beings. She still hoped to protect the illusion just like she cared so much about the presence of pink chrysanthemums.
chrysanthement is a memory between the miner and his wife.that's why the chrysanthements are always mentioned in the story.and it also be seen in the conversation between the wife and her daughter.however,the miner is under a tough environment and works for his family.that's why he is always drunken and got home late.this story portrays the society of America during its civil war.under this kind of society and environment,it's hard to live in comfort for most people.it's not weird to be like the miner,if i were him.
According to the picture and some information, I think it`s not too difficult for us to imagine why Walter turns into an abusive and angry drunkard. In a country that practices Industrialization, a person can become barbaric. Living and working with machines and dark coal mines can really drive people crazy. Industrialization make Walter work for money, Work to survive. Working in a dark, dirty and humid atmosphere everyday let his emotion stays in a depressive situation. After a long-term stress, Walter became a mechanical person and alcoholic because he couldn`t find a way to escape from this kind of society. This is cruel but real.
Chrysanthemum, a kind of flower that have short blossom, the short romantic relationship between Elizabeth and her husband. Their marriage was beautiful before, but everything changed after his husband turned into a mechanical and alcoholic. I think it can also represent the death of Walter because Chrysanthemum represent “death”.
It’s not so hard to understand that women all want to be the princesses! We want to have beautiful flowers、good marriage、and a nice husband!
Elizabeth was just a normal woman. She looked forward to marriage! But when the dream turned into the reality, everything got out of tone. Her beautiful lover became a drunkard! And she became a mother who had to take lots of responsibility and had no right to dream! How pathetic this situation would be? Elizabeth had nothing except the chrysanthemum which would remind her that she used to have beautiful dreams.
She had a grudge against her husband because he seemed to be the one who started to destroy anything. But when his death came, she started to realize he was not the murderer but the victim! The murderer who really destroyed their dream was realistic environment!
There are two symbols of chrysanthemums. First, chrysanthemums are represented a image of marriage. Elizabeth would have expected a glorious marriage, but things had not gone the way she would have thought. Secondly, it is represented the break an illusion of her true love. She thought her love would be as beautiful as chrysanthemums.
Walter became a drunkard because of the social force. He tried to release his soul under the pressure of his job.
When I see the picture, I feel sorrowful.I can understand that it is difficult to live at that time. There is a big difference from the life we live now.
In the story, I realize why Elizabeth's husband turns into an abusive and angry drunkard. Because of the industrialization, the situation makes him full of depression and he has the responsibility to raise his family. He has to make the money. Under a heavy pressure, it's of course that he become a melancholy man. He wants to let off his emotions, so he finds these ways to make himself feel better.
About chrysanthemums, they stand for the beautiful things and love for Elizabeth, but chrysanthemums also mean death. Telling her graceful things are fugacious, as a result, she treasure the dreams in her mind very much.
The miners in the pictures look really tired and exhausted.I think the picture clearly shows the image of Walter.He have to work hard in order to support his family. The environment he worked is really bad. He work very hard but only get little payment.He is dejected and don't know how to release his feeling. That's why he became a drunk.Alcohol seems to lighten his pain.
Chrysanthemums symbolize the woman's beautiful dream. Compare to such a tough situation the woman had, chrysanthemums are just like hope to her. That's why chrysanthemums play a important role in this story.
The era Walter is in, is the main reason to be blamed.That age is the birth of capitalism and still lots of rights and just are not yet to be served. (Maybe it is why the communinists were so praised by most people in the lower class in that era.) Laborars have to work so hard for so pity erans.
The chrysanthemums in the story symbolizes the transient beauty and the "true love".
In the process of industrialization, laborers’ families lived in small houses in cramped streets and had bad working conditions. Walter was a coal miner living during this era. Every day, he worked in hot, stuffy, and life-threatening underground mines with low wages. Day after day he put his life at risk to maintain a family. He might have had a beautiful vision of future－a beautiful wife, lovely children, a happy family. However, as a coal miner during that era, there is no future. The burden to raise the family crushes every dream and beauty. He had no choice but to give in to reality. Therefore, he resorted to alcohol for temporary satisfaction. The unreal pleasure was followed by dissatisfaction, anger, and resentment. Predictably, he vented his anger on his wife and maybe even his children.
The chrysanthemums signify grace, beauty, and romance－things Elizabeth longed for but wasn’t provided with. She refused to face the reality and tried to maintain unrealistic appearances by putting chrysanthemums in her apron.
After industrialization, the lifestyle of human has changed a lot. Walter lived in a mysterious way. As a miner, he worked in a dark pit for hours in a day, this kind of work changed Walter into an inhuman person. He started to feel depressed about life; the miners worked like a machine through out the day, they kept doing the same thing in the darkness. This endless and painful process made him start to doubt the value of human; they worked like a machine through out their life, what are they living for? The future seemed hopeless, the situation would never change. Walter tried to escape from the reality, then he became a a slave to drink, the addiction to alcohol was actually his fear of facing his life.
As for the presence of pink chrysanthemums in the story, I think it symbolized the passion and the romance toward life. These feelings were so precious that Elizabeth couldn’t own them, it almost became a luxury in that time. Elizabeth seems to care so much about the presence of pink chrysanthemums because her discontent with marriage life was reflected on the pink chrysanthemums.
In the industrial environment, machines replace human works. Workers become more poor and hard working. Walter and his mates have to work all day long in such a humid, dirty place.And only earn little money to feed all his family, that’s so lamentable. And whyWalter becomes a drunkard? I think it is one of his way to release his giant pressure. These miners need wine to console their hollow soul. When we work or study all day, we also need some entertainment even it is bad. Go to pub ,go smoking…..It is involving no major principle.
Pink Chrysanthemums is so beautiful and cute. It is represent Elizabeth’s expectation. It is the her love values imagination. Finally, her husband die in accident, she does not blame him because she knows it is not his fault. It is the big environment’s fault. Elizabeth is so helpless; she is hard to maintain the present conditions.
Walter was once a man with love and passion, flesh and blood. However, the amazing fast development of industrialization compelled Walter and other miners to work extremely hard to provide as much fuel as they could to machines which were ironically designed to offer mankind convenience and efficiency. Trapped in the dark pit, Walter lost his ability to live under the sunshine, the light he used to like. He was forced by the living and worked as a machine, repeating the action of mining and facing the cold mine all day long without any relaxation and entertainment. This type of living made Walter an abusive drunkard, depressed and irritable. He almost forgot what he was living for and failed to give love and care to his family because he was totally sick owing to the inhuman works. He just could not find the way to get out of the hopelessness and alienation that brought by industrialized society.
On the other hand, for Elizabeth, a female, who was unwilling to yield to the reality kept her sweet romances and illusory fancies concerning her husband and she. Her family, her husband and children, actually lived in poverty. Owing to the miserable truth, she diverted her attention from reality to the chrysanthemums. The bright colors and attractive odor which represented exuberance and prosperity gave her hopes for life and satisfied her barren mind.
A three-hour-class without taking a break is very tiring to us. Needless to say, a long day work in a coal tunnel must be more tired than a three-hours-class. Without fresh air to breathe, without enough light to illuminate in, and with highly cautions during the work, how could all these do harm to one’s mental and physical? In my viewpoint, Walter wanted to escape from the reality and therefore became a drunkard. Though the miserable life he lived, he became a drunkard who also brought miseries to his family.
It is because the life was so troublesome and without any hope that Elizabeth wanted to build up a principle in her life. To her, the chrysanthemum is a symbol of noble, elegance, and upper class. Throughout this way, she evaded the daily life and had a better reason to live.
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