"The Odour of Chrysanthemums"

One of the most striking elements of the story is the tension that builds. The whole family, especially Elizabeth, is focused on the arrival of the father. Elizabeth grows increasingly impatient. Often, she is on the verge of wild emotions, but she keeps herself in check. The reader, along with the wife, starts to sense that something may be wrong.

Elizabeth is not a typical, loving spouse. It is clear that she despises her husband because of his drinking, and because of the emotional effect that it has on her. She feels it beneath herself to go to the tavern to look for him and bring him home. Yet she reacts to every noise outside the home in anticipation of the arrival of her husband. Elizabeth clearly has problems demonstrating emotion; this could be the reason why her husband has resorted to drinking.

Elizabeth's lack of warmth is demonstrated in her reaction to the chrysanthemums, which are seen throughout the story, and symbolize the death of the love relationship between the husband and wife. In the first appeara

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is important because it represents a triumph over despair. In many ways, the narrator of the story has led a sheltered life. He is an educated black man, a teacher in Harlem. But he distances himself from his students and their problems, just like other faculty members, whom the narrator observes in a courtyard with the students: "A teacher passed through them every now and again, quickly, as though he or she couldn't wait to get out of that courtyard, to get those boys out of their sight and off their minds" (Baldwin 48). Likewise, the narrator has kept his distance from former childhood acquaintances, who have succumbed to life on the streets. When he runs into one of Sonny's old friends, now a drug addict, the narrator at first treats his with disrespect: "Then I felt guilty--guilty, probably, for never having supposed that the poor bastard had a story of his own, much less a sad one" (Baldwin 49). The narrator's mother has even protected him from the reason that his father turned to drink--the tragic death of his own brother at the hands of racists hoodlums. As the narrator's mother explains, "It ain't only the bad ones, nor yet the dumb ones that gets sucked under" (Baldwin 55). The mother pleads with the narrator
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Grace Paley, William Blake, James Baldwin, DH Lawrence, Goodman Brown, Faith Faith, Massachusetts Hawthorne's, Brown Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Finally Brown, goodman brown, paley 141, human nature, blake's poem, blake 800, howling storm, evil human nature, rose's bed, real life, sick rose, hawthorne 194, trust excitement date, love trust excitement,
Approximate Word count = 2909
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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