The short story by John Steinbeck follows Elisa Allen, a proud and strong lady, who is upset with her current existence in The Chrysanthemums. Her dissatisfaction originates from her inability to have a child and her husband’s lack of romantic admiration for her as a woman. Her flower garden, where she grows gorgeous chrysanthemums, is her sole outlet for her frustration (Steinbeck, 238). The author employs chrysanthemums as emblems of her inner self of Elisa and women in general.
In the first part of the novel, the chrysanthemums represent Elisa’s children. She cares for her garden and chrysanthemums with the same love and cares she would for her children. Elisa protects her flowers by erecting a wire fence around them, ensuring that “no aphids, sowbugs, snails, or cutworms” are present (Steinbeck, 240). These bugs cause natural harm to the flowers, and she eliminates them before they can hurt her offspring, just like any good mother would. Thus, she invests the unspent feelings of love and cares into the plants, taking very personally every remark about them. Elisa is ecstatic with her ability to care for these lovely flowers. Her pleasure in her ability to create such lovely flowers emphasizes the fact that the flowers are a substitute for the children she wishes to have.
The chrysanthemums come to signify Elisa’s femininity in the second half of the novel. Elisa’s photo in her room depicts her caring for the flowers as if they were her children, yet her lack of harmony with a softer side of herself can also be seen in her “hard-swept and hard-polished” home (Steinbeck, 240). Elisa is disconnected from her femininity and does not believe that her husband can appreciate it in her. This lack of connection and love leaves her vulnerable to the charms of the tinker, who, by admiring the flower, is indirectly admiring her (Steinbeck, 241). This experience transforms Elisa’s inner life, as she begins to re-evaluate herself, and finds a new source of potential to blossom in her marriage.
Work Cited
Steinbeck, John. The Chrysanthemums and Other Stories, Penguin Books, 1995