Women in the Face of War

The National Socialist Party of Germany, the Nazi's, seized Austria through military force in 1938. The year before he sent troops into Rhineland (a strip of land between France and Germany), a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles. In September, as part of the Munich Conference with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain, they also secured the Sudetenland, roughly one-third of Czechoslovakia. Six months later he would march on the remainder of Czechoslovakia. The country being previously referred to by Adolf Hitler as the "aircraft carrier" in the heart of Europe.(Gatzke, Hans., Pg.194) Complete with additional military armaments from his new conquests, in 1939 he marched on Poland, thus causing Britain and France to simultaneously declare war on Germany. John Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums is about women, their role in war, and in the face of the impending World War II.

Throughout the story you see Elisa physically and mentally steel herself to take on the role of a woman during war. She's proven herself capable of doing hard labor, donning the garb of a man, and assessing situations that weren't considered to be part of a woman's role. Ultimately it's her husband's refusal to accept her in a capacity that goes outside her gender role, that stalemates her from becoming more, and only in war where things aren't normal, can she finally realize her need to live outside what's socially accepted.