Chrysanthemum Theory

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On average, one out of every four students gets bullied each year. That’s why author Kevin Henkes created the book Chrysanthemum, and to give an important message to readers to be friendly to everyone and respect your peers. Henkes is known for illustrating children’s picture books, and the main characters are generally mice. In his book Chrysanthemum, Henkes states examples of psychoanalytic theory to give the reader an understanding of the main character’s ego, superego, and id to explain what is going on in her mind from her perspective. The story as a whole explains to children why you should respect yourself and love your quirks.
The theory described in Henkes’ book is the psychoanalytical theory. The three parts of the main character …show more content…
They named her Chrysanthemum because they wanted her name to be perfect. Her name must be everything she is,” said her mother. And it was. Chrysanthemum. Her parents named her Chrysanthemum” (Henkes 2). Early in the book, Chrysanthemum always admired her name because of her parents’ compliments. Since they always said that she was absolutely perfect she started to believed it. This makes Chrysanthemum into a happy girl and shows that her parents are her role models and who she looks up to when she is feeling upset. Furthermore, Chrysanthemum’s mom and dad wanted her to appreciate her name even when she was feeling upset about it because of how it represents her beauty and perfection. Oh, pish, said her mother. Your name is beautiful. And precious and priceless and fascinating and winsome, said her father,” (Henkes 11). The things that her parents say show that they have an impact on her personality and they try to make her believe what is right to them no matter what. They appear as Chrysanthemum’s ego, because they are attempting to get her to believe that her name reflects her unique personality and show the positive reasons why her name is …show more content…
Twinkle, the music teacher. She is described as a wonderful person towards the classmates and the students tried to make good impressions towards her. When Rita, Jo, and Victoria were laughing at Chrysanthemum for being chosen as a daisy for the play, she steps in the conversation and succeeds at making her feel confident about her name. My name is Delphinium. Delphinium Twinkle. And if my baby is a girl, I’m considering the name Chrysanthemum. I think it’s absolutely perfect,” (Henkes 26). Mrs. Twinkle’s charming words surprises Chrysanthemum, and she once again feels that her name is incredible because she finds out that there are people that have long names other than herself. Chrysanthemum could scarcely believe her ears. She blushed. She bloomed. She beamed,” (Henkes 27). Rita, Jo, and Victoria overhear Mrs. Twinkle’s friendly comment and they too want to be named after flowers so they can be just like her and Chrysanthemum. It can easily be told by this point that Chrysanthemum has learned the message of the story. Therefore, Mrs. Twinkle is Chrysanthemum's superego and provides the moral of the story, which is to teach the reader to take pride in diversity and differences about yourself. Chrysanthemum is a wonderful example of a story about the psychoanalytical theory because of the characters and how they treat her. It’s important to look at it this way so the target audience can see
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