The Man who almost A Man

After a hard day at work, seventeen-year-old Dave heads across the fields for home, still
thinking about a conflict he’d had with some other field hands that day. He vows to someday own a gun
and get the respect he deserves, and he wants to prove to the others that he is no longer a child. He
decides to head to the local store to examine the guns offered in a mail-order catalog, hoping that his
mother will let him buy a pistol with the money he earns working in Mr. Hawkins’s fields.
Entering the store, Dave feels his confidence drain from him when he sees Joe, the shopkeeper,
but he manages to convince Joe to lend him the catalog overnight. Joe is surprised that Dave is thinking
of buying a gun, especially because he knows that Dave’s mother saves all his summer earnings. He
nevertheless offers to sell Dave an old pistol he has on hand for $2. His interest piqued, Dave says he will
come back for it later.
At home, Mrs. Saunders chides Dave for being late, and Dave tells her he was visiting his friends.
On his way out to wash his hands, Mrs. Saunders notices the catalog and seizes it, giving it back when
Dave explains he has to return it the next day. During supper, Dave is too engrossed in the catalog to eat
or notice the arrival of his father and younger brother. Admiring the revolvers, he chokes down his
dinner, knowing that he should ask his mother for the money instead of his father.
Dave finally works up enough courage after dinner to broach the subject, first asking his mother
whether Mr. Hawkins has paid her for his time working in the fields. Mrs. Saunders responds that the
money is solely for his school clothes and immediately dismisses the idea of buying a gun. Dave pleads
his case, arguing that the family needs a gun and that he’ll give it to Mr. Saunders. Still not fully
convinced, Mrs. Saunders finally gives Dave the $2 on the condition that he bring the gun directly to her
after buying it.
After buying the pistol, Dave walks around the fields with it, admiring the gun but too scared
and unsure of how to fire it. He waits until it’s dark and he’s sure everyone has already fallen asleep
before going home, and he puts the gun underneath his pillow instead of giving it to his mother as he’d
promised. Mrs. Saunders approaches him in the middle of the night and quietly asks for the gun, but
Dave tells her that he stashed it outside and will give it to her in the morning.
When he wakes up, Dave removes the gun and holds it in his hands, realizing that he now has
the power to kill someone. He quietly gets out of bed and ties the pistol to his leg with an old strip of
flannel. He then heads out to the fields where he works, and he accidentally runs into his boss, Mr.
Hawkins. Surprised but not wanting to give away his secret, Dave tells Mr. Hawkins that he just wanted
to get a head start on the day’s work. He hitches the plow to a mule named Jenny and heads to the field
farthest away so that he can fire the pistol without anyone noticing.
After holding and admiring the gun, Dave finally works up the courage to actually pull the
trigger. He doesn’t take proper aim, however, and accidentally shoots Jenny. Dave panics and
desperately tries to stop the bleeding by plugging the wound with dirt, but Jenny soon dies. Sickened
and frightened, he buries the gun at the base of tree and heads across the field, trying to concoct a
believable story to explain Jenny’s death to Mr. Hawkins.
Someone eventually finds Jenny, and a small group gathers around her body. When pressed,
Dave lies and says that Jenny had been startled and fell on the point of the plow. Unconvinced, Mrs.
Saunders urges him to tell the truth and then quietly asks about the gun when no one else is listening.
Meanwhile, someone comments that Jenny’s wound looks like a bullet hole. Crying and realizing that he
has to tell the truth, Dave confesses. Mr. Saunders is shocked to hear about the pistol and Mrs.
Saunders’s complicity.
Mr. Hawkins tells Dave that he’ll have to pay $50 for the mule even though her death had been
an accident. He then tells Mr. Saunders that he’ll take $2 out of Dave’s pay each month until the debt
has been paid. When Mr. Saunders asks Dave where he put the gun, however, Dave lies again and says
that he threw it into the creek. His father tells him to retrieve it, get his $2 back from Joe, and give them
to Mr. Hawkins as his first payment.
Unable to sleep that night, Dave skulks out to retrieve the gun. Cleaning it off, he forces himself
to shoot it without closing his eyes and turning his head away as he’d done before. He fires the gun four
times until there are no more bullets left. Putting the gun in his pocket, he heads across the field until he
comes to Mr. Hawkins’s large white house. If he had one more bullet, he muses, he would fire at the
house to let Mr. Hawkins know that he is really a man. Dave then hears the sound of a train in the
distance. Gun in hand, he heads for the tracks and hops into a moving boxcar as the train continues on
into the night.

Dave Saunders
Dave is both an average adolescent struggling with growing up and the
embodiment of all frustrated and impoverished African Americans without opportunities.
On one level, Dave’s experiences are not unique: he’s a stereotypical teenager seeking
a level of maturity and independence that he’s not yet ready for. He can imagine the
benefits of adulthood but doesn’t understand the obligations that come with more
freedom of choice. Searching for a quick way to become a man, he focuses on the guns
for sale in Joe’s mail-order catalogue, falsely believing that raw power will automatically
win him the respect he desires. His murderous fantasies highlight his fixation with
physical strength and misperception that the power to kill brings the power to control.
Impatient, Dave tries to initiate his own rite of passage into manhood without making
any of the sacrifices that come with adulthood.
Dave is a figure of the times, a field hand’s son who has no choice but to become
a field hand himself. Chained to a life of barely making ends meet, he lacks the
education and opportunities to make his life better because white society forbids it. He
feels that his life is so harsh and overwhelming that escape is the only solution. He
expresses this urge in several ways, initially in the lies he tells, with his willful bending of
the truth to make the world around him more in line with his hopes and desires. Dave’s
quest for adulthood and ultimate escape thus marks a shifting tide in society, as more
black Americans broke with their past and ties to the South in search of new
opportunities elsewhere.

The Gun
The gun represents power, masculinity, respect, and independence—in short,
everything that Dave desperately wants. He sees the gun as the solution to all his
problems and compensation for all his weaknesses. Dave resents the fact that the other
field hands treat him like a child and therefore mistakenly believes that owning a gun
would instantly make a man out of him, even though he doesn’t know how to fire one.
He mistakenly reasons that owning a gun would also somehow provide him with
independence, as if knowing how to fire it would keep him out of the fields and provide
him with greater opportunities. Dave fantasizes about shooting at Mr. Hawkins’s house,
which suggests that Jenny’s death has taught him nothing and has only made him crave
power, independence, and masculinity even more.

The Mule
Jenny, Mr. Hawkins’s mule, represents Dave himself, who fears working as a
subservient field hand on another man’s land for the rest of his life. Dave consciously
recognizes the similarities between himself and Jenny, even saying to himself before
running away that everyone “treat[s] me like a mule, n they beat me,” alluding to the
thrashing his father had promised him. Dave believes that all he does is toil like Jenny,
yoked to a plow with little hope of reward, escape, or becoming something better. The
mule also represents commitment and responsibility, hallmarks of adulthood that Dave
is still unwilling to accept. He wants only the freedom that he imagines adults have
without any of their obligations. Jenny’s death is consequently the symbolic death of
Dave’s childhood, which he wishes to erase to escape the community and a life of
drudgery. Ironically, the power that Dave associates with owning a gun brings change
but forces him to embark on a journey to manhood for which he’s not yet ready.

Themes
The Search for Power
Dave Saunders is trapped in a world that strips him of his personal and economic
power. Dave sees his life as a series of abuses and humiliations: he’s forced to obey his
parents, work as a field hand for pay he never receives, and endure ribbing from the
other field workers. His growing sense of degradation derives from the social and
economic forces that keep him from achieving his potential and pursuing his dreams.
The idea of owning a gun thus becomes Dave’s outlet, a way to quickly become
powerful and manly. He believes that a pistol in his hand will give him more control over
others; however, Jenny’s death only limits his future by forcing him to repay Mr.
Hawkins the price of the mule. Although accidental, Jenny’s death could be interpreted
as Dave’s unconscious desire to strike out against Mr. Hawkins. By destroying a symbol
of Hawkins’s prosperity and power as a landowner, Dave may be lashing out at an
economic system and social order that he will always be excluded from merely because
of his skin color.

Coming-of-Age Struggles
On many levels, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” is a coming-of-age story in which
the adolescent Dave Saunders must overcome numerous hurdles to become a mature
adult. Restless, impatient, and taunted by the older men he works with, Dave believes
that acquiring a gun will end his adolescence and transform him into a real man. Not
surprisingly, however, Dave discovers that owning a gun only brings more problems and
a much greater burden of responsibility. Ironically, possessing a pistol actually would
have ushered Dave into adulthood if only he’d been able to handle the extra
responsibility like an adult. Because he has to work for two years to repay Mr. Hawkins
for Jenny’s death, the gun brings Dave greater commitment and obligation—the true
hallmarks of manhood. But Dave discovers at the end of the story that he’s really
seeking escape, not more commitment. When owning a gun becomes a heavier burden
than he’d realized, he chooses to leave, demonstrating even further that he’s really not
yet ready to become an adult. Still convinced that the gun is a more of a boon than a
burden, he takes it with him, possibly inviting more trouble in the future.

Motifs
Lies and Lying
Dave’s lies indicate his disconnectedness from the world around him and prove that he
is unprepared for the responsibilities of adulthood. Lying emerges as a behavior at odds
with the moral qualities associated with adulthood and stereotypes of male behavior.
Throughout the story, Dave tries to twist the truth in his favor so that he can buy a gun
and avoid punishment. He convinces his mother to give him the $2 to buy the gun, for
example, only after telling her that he plans to give it to Mr. Saunders. He reneges on
his promise to give her the gun after buying it and later claims that he threw the gun in
the river after shooting Jenny. Like a child, he fails to realize that lying won’t protect him
and will only bring more problems in the future.

Darkness
The darkness that pervades the story highlights the constraints, humiliation, and
wounded pride that Dave associates with his work and family life. In the story’s opening
line, Dave makes his way across the fields “through parting light,” fresh from another
humiliating run-in with the older workers on the plantation. Thinking of the gun comforts
him as the sun sets, caught between day and night just as he’s caught between
childhood and adulthood. After purchasing the gun, he stays out late, taking aim in the
dark fields at “imaginary foes.” Daytime only brings trouble and humiliation to Dave,
whereas all his fantasies and imagined adventures take place at night. Wright describes
Dave’s relationship with the gun as a clandestine affair involving lies, deceit, and secret
locales. Only in the darkened fields can Dave find the independence and masculinity he
seeks.

By choosing this self-contradictory title, Wright is alluding to the

downright confusing nature of growing up. Going from childhood to adulthood isn't like
driving across state lines, with helpful road signs guiding along the way. No, growing up
is more like making that drive while wearing a blindfold.
This is a lesson that Dave Saunders learns well. Although he thinks of himself as a man
and wants to be treated like a man, he proves time and time again that he's still a kid at
heart. Still, as we learn more about his life, we come to the realization that this
seventeen-year-old might be a little more mature than he lets on. He might even be the
man he so badly wants to be recognized as.
 A Worn Path

Phoenix Jackson
Phoenix, an aged and frail but also fierce woman (she was born into slavery in the pre-Civil-War
South, though the story takes place in 1940), will not allow anything in her path to stop her
from getting to her end goal, which is to retrieve medicine in town for her grandson. Though on
her journey from her rural home into the Mississippi town of Natchez – which she has made
several times before – she is confronted with both natural obstacles and racially tense
encounters, she works through them with dignity, grace, and quite a bit of cleverness. Though
her journey exhausts her emotionally and physically, she is seen through by her indefatigable
optimism, faith in God, and love for her grandson. By the end of the story she has stated her
place in the world and reaffirmed her hope in and for her grandson, and her perseverance and
enduring hope in continuing to carve out her worn path – both the path into town and the path
of her life – she reaffirms a kind of hope for all the powerless. She also functions as a Christ
figure in the story.

Hunter
The hunter appears relatively briefly in the story, but he unforgettably exemplifies the racial
politics that Phoenix has to deal with in her day-to-day life. Though at first he aids Phoenix
when she has fallen in a ditch, he afterwards rather casually points a gun at her to see if it
frightens her. The casualness of his action speaks to how little he actually cares for her as a
human, and expresses his sense of racial superiority. The hunter also tells Phoenix that she
should give up her journey and go back home, as he cannot imagine her – or any black person –
possessing a legitimate reason for being out on the road to go to town. Condescending and
superior, the hunter still gets duped by Phoenix when she takes advantage of his racism and
urges him to get rid of the “big black dog” who isn’t “scared of nobody.” Ironically, he later tells
her that he would give her a dime if he had any money, though he does not realize that she has
already taken the nickel that has fallen out of his pocket.

Grandson
For Phoenix, her grandson represents the future of her family, and perhaps, for black people in
general. Though we never get to see him, we do know that he suffers greatly after having
swallowed lye a few years earlier as a young boy. The nurse in the city seems to believe that his
hopes for the future are rather dim, yet Phoenix is confident that the boy will endure, saying
that he “will last.” Phoenix not only wants to give her grandson his needed medicine, it is
revealed at the end of the story that she also wants to him a sense of the wonder and
possibility in the world in the form of the paper windmill.

Nurse
The nurse knows Phoenix from her twice annual visits to the doctor’s office. Though she is
sympathetic to Phoenix, she is also a bit impatient when Phoenix is slow to respond to her and
seems to consider her own time more important than Phoenix’s. She gives Phoenix the
medicine and marks it down as charity.
A Woman
Phoenix stops this woman on the street and asks the woman to tie her (Phoenix’s) shoes. The
woman, who is probably white, obliges, and kneels down in a scene reminiscent of Mary
Magdalene washing Christ’s feet. Yet, at the same time, the woman gruffly tells Phoenix to
stand still, indicating her distaste and sense of superiority.

Attendant
On first looking at Phoenix in the doctor’s office, the attendant assumes that Phoenix is a
“charity case”. She is fairly rude and condescending, haranguing Phoenix for failing to give
immediate answers rather than caring about Phoenix’s well-being. Noting that it’s
Christmastime, she offers Phoenix a few pennies as charity, and gives in when Phoenix asks for
a nickel. This nickel allows Phoenix to buy the paper windmill.

Symbol
The story can be thought of as a kind of road trip. Phoenix travels over many different kinds of
surfaces, from sand, to wagon trails, to sidewalks. She also encounters many obstacles along
her path, from the thorns to the stream crossing, to the hunter, scarecrow, and the lone dog.
Some of the obstacles are foreseen; most are surprises to her. These shifting elements of the
path she walks symbolize Phoenix’s life, with its many and nearly constant difficulties, and yet it
also symbolizes the way that, through perseverance, Phoenix has been able to slowly carve out
a path through those difficulties, even if it is faint and tenuous. Further, it is possible to see the
symbol of the worn path as representative of not just Phoenix’s life, but also the lives of all
Southern black people – an encapsulation of the idea that it is both brutally hard and also vital
and possible to wear down a path to a better life despite terrible obstacles.
 The Chrysanthemum

Elisa Allen - The protagonist. A robust thirty-five-year-old woman, Elisa lives

with her husband, Henry, on a ranch in the Salinas Valley. Even though Elisa is
associated with fertility and sexuality, the couple has no children. She is a hard worker,
her house sparkles, and her flowers grow tremendous blooms. Nevertheless, Elisa feels
trapped, underappreciated, and frustrated with life.
Elisa Allen is an interesting, intelligent, and passionate woman who lives an
unsatisfying, understimulated life. She’s thwarted or ignored at every turn: having a
professional career is not an option for her, she has no children, her interest in the
business side of the ranch goes unnoticed, her offers of helping her husband to ranch
are treated with well-meant condescension, and her wish to see the world is shrugged
off as an unfit desire for a woman to have. As a result, Elisa devotes all of her energy to
maintaining her house and garden. The pride she takes in her housekeeping is both
exaggerated and melancholy. Although she rightly brags about her green thumb, Elisa’s
connection to nature seems forced and not something that comes as naturally as she
claims. She knows a great deal about plants, most likely because as a woman,
gardening is the only thing she has to think about.
Elisa is so frustrated with life that she readily looks to the tinker for stimulating
conversation and even sex, two elements that seem to be lacking in her life. Her
physical attraction to the tinker and her flirtatious, witty conversation with him bring out
the best in Elisa, turning her into something of a poet. Her brief flashes of brilliance in
the tinker’s presence show us how much she is always thinking and feeling and how
rarely she gets to express herself. When the prospect of physical and mental fulfillment
disappears with the tinker, Elisa’s devastation suggests how dissatisfied she is with her
marriage. She’s so desperate to transcend the trap of being a woman that she seeks
any escape, trying to banter with her husband, asking for wine with her dinner, and even
expressing interest in the bloody fights that only men usually attend. None of these will
truly satisfy Elisa, though, and it is doubtful that she’ll ever find fulfillment.

The Tinker - A tall, bearded man who makes his living repairing pots, pans, and
other kitchen utensils. The tinker is a smart person and charming salesman. He is also
down on his luck and not above pleading for work after Elisa initially turns him down. He
may share her wanderlust, or she may only imagine that he does.
Elisa idealizes the visiting Tinker as exciting and smart, although it’s difficult to tell
whether he is actually either of these things. Although his misspelled advertisement for kitchen
implement repair indicates that he hasn’t had much schooling, the tinker comes across as a
witty man who flirts and banters with Elisa. He is also clever and canny enough to convince the
skeptical Elisa to give him work, begging at first and finally resorting to flattery. His ability to
manipulate her may appeal to Elisa, who is used to manipulating her own husband. In fact, she
seems to relish the chance to spar with a worthy partner, and the tinker produces an intense
reaction in her. If we can trust her interpretation of him, he shares her appreciation for travel and
her interest in a physical connection. However, Steinbeck suggests that although the tinker may
actually possess these qualities, it is also possible that Elisa merely imagines that he possesses
them because she’s so desperate to talk to someone who understands her. In fact, the tinker
may be bewildered and embarrassed by her intensity and want only to sell his services to her.
The fact that he tosses away her chrysanthemum shoots—a symbol of Elisa herself—supports
the idea that the tinker does not share Elisa’s passions at all.

Henry Allen - Elisa’s husband. Henry is a kind man, if slightly dimwitted. He

loves his wife but doesn’t really understand and appreciate her. Still, he is an adequate
businessman who runs his ranch successfully and provides a comfortable life for his
wife. He seems to love Elisa and tries his best to please her despite the fact that she
mystifies him.
Elisa’s husband, Henry, is a good, solid man who’s unable to please his wife. By the
standards of his society, Henry is everything a woman should want in a husband: he provides
for her, treats her with respect, and even takes her out every now and then. At the same time,
however, Henry is also stolid and unimaginative. He praises his wife as he would a small child,
without understanding the genuine interest she takes in business or realizing that she has the
potential to do so much more with her life. A traditional man, Henry functions in the story as a
stand-in for patriarchal society as a whole. He believes that a strict line separates the sexes,
that women like dinner and movies, for example, and that men like fights and ranching. His
benevolent, sometimes dismissive attitude toward his wife—who is undoubtedly smarter—
highlights society’s inability to treat women as equals.

Chrysanthemums
The chrysanthemums symbolize both Elisa and the limited scope of her life. Like
Elisa, the chrysanthemums are lovely, strong, and thriving. Their flowerbed, like Elisa’s
house, is tidy and scrupulously ordered. Elisa explicitly identifies herself with the
flowers, even saying that she becomes one with the plants when she tends to them.
When the tinker notices the chrysanthemums, Elisa visibly brightens, just as if he had
noticed her instead. She offers the chrysanthemums to him at the same time she offers
herself, both of which he ignores and tosses aside. His rejection of the flowers also
mimics the way society has rejected women as nothing more than mothers and
housekeepers. Just like her, the flowers are unobjectionable and also unimportant: both
are merely decorative and add little value to the world.

The Salinas Valley

The Salinas Valley symbolizes Elisa’s emotional life. The story opens with a
lengthy description of the valley, which Steinbeck likens to a pot topped with a lid made
of fog. The metaphor of the valley as a “closed pot” suggests that Elisa is trapped inside
an airless world and that her existence has reached a boiling point. We also learn that
although there is sunshine nearby, no light penetrates the valley. Sunshine is often
associated with happiness, and the implication is that while people near her are happy,
Elisa is not. It is December, and the prevailing atmosphere in the valley is chilly and
watchful but not yet devoid of hope. This description of the weather and the general
spirits of the inhabitants of the valley applies equally well to Elisa, who is like a fallow
field: quiet but not beaten down or unable to grow. What first seems to be a lyrical
description of a valley in California is revealed to be a rich symbol of Elisa’s
claustrophobic, unhappy, yet hopeful inner life.
Themes
The Inequality of Gender
“The Chrysanthemums” is an understated but pointed critique of a society that
has no place for intelligent women. Elisa is smart, energetic, attractive, and ambitious,
but all these attributes go to waste. Although the two key men in the story are less
interesting and talented than she, their lives are far more fulfilling and busy. Henry is not
as intelligent as Elisa, but it is he who runs the ranch, supports himself and his wife, and
makes business deals. All Elisa can do is watch him from afar as he performs his job.
Whatever information she gets about the management of the ranch comes indirectly
from Henry, who speaks only in vague, condescending terms instead of treating his wife
as an equal partner. The tinker seems cleverer than Henry but doesn’t have Elisa’s
spirit, passion, or thirst for adventure. According to Elisa, he may not even match her
skill as a tinker. Nevertheless, it is he who gets to ride about the country, living an
adventurous life that he believes is unfit for women. Steinbeck uses Henry and the
tinker as stand-ins for the paternalism of patriarchal societies in general: just as they
ignore women’s potential, so too does society.

The Importance of Sexual Fulfillment

Steinbeck argues that the need for sexual fulfillment is incredibly powerful and
that the pursuit of it can cause people to act in irrational ways. Elisa and Henry have a
functional but passionless marriage and seem to treat each other more as siblings or
friends than spouses. Elisa is a robust woman associated with fertility and sexuality but
has no children, hinting at the nonsexual nature of her relationship with Henry. Despite
the fact that her marriage doesn’t meet her needs, Elisa remains a sexual person, a
quality that Steinbeck portrays as normal and desirable. As a result of her frustrated
desires, Elisa’s attraction to the tinker is frighteningly powerful and uncontrollable. When
she speaks to him about looking at the stars at night, for example, her language is
forward, nearly pornographic. She kneels before him in a posture of sexual submission,
reaching out toward him and looking, as the narrator puts it, “like a fawning dog.” In
essence, she puts herself at the mercy of a complete stranger. The aftermath of Elisa’s
powerful attraction is perhaps even more damaging than the attraction itself. Her
sexuality, forced to lie dormant for so long, overwhelms her and crushes her spirit after
springing to life so suddenly.

Motifs
Clothing
Elisa’s clothing changes as her muted, masculine persona becomes more feminine after
the visit from the tinker. When the story begins, Elisa is wearing an androgynous
gardening outfit, complete with heavy shoes, thick gloves, a man’s hat, and an apron
filled with sharp, phallic implements. The narrator even describes her body as “blocked
and heavy.” The masculinity of Elisa’s clothing and shape reflects her asexual
existence. After speaking with the tinker, however, Elisa begins to feel intellectually and
physically stimulated, a change that is reflected in the removal of her gloves. She also
removes her hat, showing her lovely hair. When the tinker leaves, Elisa undergoes an
almost ritualistic transformation. She strips, bathes herself, examines her naked body in
the mirror, and then dresses. She chooses to don fancy undergarments, a pretty dress,
and makeup. These feminine items contrast sharply with her bulky gardening clothes
and reflect the newly energized and sexualized Elisa. At the end of the story, after Elisa
has seen the castoff shoots, she pulls up her coat collar to hide her tears, a gesture that
suggests a move backward into the repressed state in which she has lived most, if not
all, of her adult life.