What do the chrysanthemums represent in "Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D. H. Lawrence?

 As the protagonist in “The Odour of Chrysanthemums,” the reader follows Elizabeth through one night of her life.  This is the night that changes everything for Elizabeth  forever.

Summary

Elizabeth and her family wait for her husband Walter to come from work.  He does not come home; Elizabeth believes that he is at the local pub.  Eventually, she learns that Walter has been killed in a mine accident.  The story concludes with Elizabeth and Walter’s mother preparing his body for burial.   Elizabeth realizes that she has not been a good wife to Walter because she withheld herself from him.

Chrysanthemums and symbolism

Disillusionment and Dreams

‘…she, suddenly pitiful broke off a twig with three or four flowers and held them again her face.’

Elizabeth is a complex character. When her son finds some flowers  and drop the leaves, Elizabeth tells him to stop because they look nasty.  Yet, she places the flowers against her face.  This gesture shows a soft side of Elizabeth.   She then puts the flower branch in her apron rather than throw it away.

The chrysanthemums represent a dual meaning for Elizabeth.  She loves the flowers, but they last  briefly in the fall. The smell is refreshing sometimes.  

The flowers are beautiful for a time.  Elizabeth keeps them in vases in her house.  Real beauty is fleeting in Elizabeth‘s life because it has not gone the way that she planned.  She had dreams about her marriage and her life.

Now, disillusionment finds its way into her heart and mind.  The town is filled with rats and dirt.  Her husband goes to the pub rather than come home. She is pregnant with a third child.  Nothing is as she thought it would be.

When her daughter asks to smell the flowers, Elizabeth is short with her. The daughter thinks that the flowers smell wonderful. To the mother, the chrysanthemums represent the good in her life and the bad times that have doused her dreams. Chrysanthemums were in her wedding bouquet, and Walter gave her chrysanthemums when her daughter was born. Those were the good times.

On the other hand, the first time that Walter was brought home drunk, he had a brown chrysanthemum in his button hole. Bitterly, she thinks to herself that this is what her life has come: Waiting on a drunken man.

Death

Elizabeth associates death with chrysanthemums.  When she prepares the room for Walter’s body, Elizabeth notices “two vases of pink chrysanthemums.”  By having the chrysanthemums in her parlor, the reader knows that she obviously loves the flowers. Then she declares that the room has the smell of death coming from the flowers.

When the men bring in Walter’s body, one of the men knocks over  the vase of chrysanthemums.The flowers symbolize not only the initiation of her marriage, but now the end of it: her marriage is broken and lost forever.

Elizabeth looks at Walter as she prepares his body for burial and realizes  what she had missed in her marriage.  She did not know him, nor did she give herself to him. She understands how delicate the balance of life is.  Just like the broken vase of flowers that was intentionally broken, her life and marriage had been broken long death of her husband.

Elizabeth blames herself.  Possibly that is why he did not come home each night. She was not there for him. In addition, Elizabeth had been waiting for something.  Instead of living in the moment, she spent her time wishing for something different or something better. 

Compare and contrast Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters in the drama Trifles.

Similarities:

Both women, in the end by protecting Minnie Wright, demonstrate a weariness of male condescension and a "stick-together" mentality.  They are willing to keep information from their husbands if it means helping another woman.

Both also are very familiar with domestic tasks and the consequences of isolation from other females.

Differences:

The two women are very different in their personalities.  Mrs. Hale is much more outspoken, and of the two, she is certainly the leader.  Mrs. Peters has to be nudged a little to go along with the plan to hide the evidence against Minnie Wright, and she comes across as nervous and meek.

Mrs. Hale is also not easily persuaded as Mrs. Peters is.  While Mrs. Peters first focuses on the horror of John Wrights' murder, Mrs. Hale is immediately willing to assume that he killed the bird and deserved whatever he got.

What is the setting in Beauty and the Beast?

As with many fairy tales, there are different versions of the story with very similar plot lines, characters, and settings. In fact, there are versions of Beauty and the Beast that date back to the mid-1700's which are set in France. In the most familiar, contemporary version of Beauty and the Beast, we meet Belle in a small provincial French town. She lives a poor existence with her father in a small cottage but we also see her in the town square.

In addition, much of the contemporary story is set in a dark, dreary castle, which is perched high above the town, deep in a forest. The castle is foreboding in that it always seems to be set in a storm especially when the story is reaching its climax.

Inside the castle is a different and soothing setting for much of the story. The characters do their best to make it a cheerful and romantic place as they go about their work of partnering Belle with the Beast.

Therefore, there is not one setting, but a number of them, with the main setting being the castle where much of the story's action occurs.

Can someone help me to figure out the theme of "By the waters of Babylon"?

If you are going to consider the theme, it is well worth considering how the point of view chosen by the author relates to the message. This masterful dystopian short story is used a lot in English teaching to give an excellent example of 1st person narration, where a character is telling you the story directly, and you can only see the action through their eyes, contrasted with an omniscient narrator who is god-like and all-seeing and can tell the reader what every character is thinking and feeling. This form of limited narration is used to great effect by the author as we literally go on the journey with John, seeing and feeling what he sees and feels, and we gradually piece together like a jigsaw puzzle what is going on, where we are and what has happened.

This narrative technique greatly serves to emphasise the message or theme of this story. We slowly begin to work out the many clues that there are (such as the names John gives things like "god roads" and what the sign "ASHING" rally said) and realise that this story is set in a post-nuclear war world which has been decimated, and the inhabitants have sunk back into the dark ages. John and his tribe describe a primitive world with many threats and mysteries that they do not fully understand. However, during the course of his journey and the vision that he has in "the high towers of the gods" John reflects the moral of the story: "Perhaps, in the old days, they ate knowledge too fast."

This then is the brutal warning that the story gives: we live in an era of unprecedented scientific discovery, yet we risk discovering too much truth too quickly, and opening some terrible Pandora's Box or using scientific advances before we fully understand their consequences. One only has to look at the press today and issues such as stem cell research, the human genome research project and cloning to see that the danger is still here and Benet's short story is still just as applicable in today's society. Whether we take heed or not is another matter...

Why is the McCourts' charity to others ironic?

Angela’s Ashes is an endearing story based on the autobiography of the life of its author and his family.  After the death of her twins, Angela, her husband, and her children return to Ireland from America.  The family is poor and destitute.  The father is a drunkard who loves his family but leaves them to fend for themselves.  The mother is forced to beg for mercy and food from the church and they receive occasional support from the government.  Angela’s infant children die frequently due to poor nutrition, lack of heat, and unhealthy living environments.  They are the poorest of the poor living in a city that already identifies them as being no better than the rats in a sewer. 

In searching through the text I found little reference to the McCourt’s behaviors that exemplified acts of charity towards others.  Instead, I found quotes indicating that they were allotted charity from others but mostly had been treated poorly by agencies and family members whom one would expect to help them.  Uncle Pa, Angela’s sister’s husband shows the family what charity he can by sneaking the boys sandwiches. One incidence of his charity is found in this quote from the text following Uncle’s Pas purchase of a text for Frankie’s 16th birthday. ‘‘I know 'tis not the same without your father,'' Pa says,' 'but I'll get you the first pint. 'Tis what I'd do if I had a son.’’ (McCourt, F.)

The income effect doesn't make sense. Can someone explain it?How,when a price increases occurs, I will feel poorer? It doesn't make sense. Who said...

You're right, this doesn't make as much intuitive sense as the substitution effect.  But here goes:

For most things, when their price goes up, you don't feel particularly poorer.  That's true because most things don't really take up much (a very high percentage) of your income.  For those types of things, the income effect really doesn't exist.

However, there are some things that are really expensive relative to your income (for most people).  Housing is one of them.  If your rent goes up 10%, you are likely to feel poorer because it's actually a lot of money compared to if the price of a Coke goes up 10%.

So that much makes sense to me.  My mortgage is about $800 a month and if it went up to $880 a month I'd notice and probably feel poorer.

As far as who said it's true... I don't know that one.  Just googling it, I've found a couple papers already that argue that it doesn't actually exist... at least not separate from the substitution effect.

As an ordinary citizen, what would you have to fear in the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts?

United States Congress passed 4 separate laws in 1798, all together called the Alien and Sedition Acts.  An ordinary citizen would have much to fear because all 4 laws limited freedoms, including freedom of speech and expanded the power of the federal government over the individual.

The Naturalization Act extended the period of time that it would take an alien to become a citizen of the United States.  Originally only 5 years, it would take a foreigner 14 years to obtain citizenship.  This was worrisome especially after the passage of the Alien and Alien Enemies Act.  Each of these gave the President and the Congress the power to deport aliens that they deemed "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States."

The ordinary citizen would most fear the Sedition Act. The Sedition Act was used to prevent individuals from speaking out against the federal government's policies.  Citizens could be imprisoned or fined for even disagreeing with the government, if the government defined it as "scandalous and malicious writing."

The true intention of the laws were to insure that any political opposition was kept quiet.