The Chrysanthemums: Literary Analysis

In “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck, we are introduced to the character Elisa Allen. She is the wife of a farmer in the Salinas Valley who struggles with her mundane life. Elisa struggles with her role on the farm and is frustrated with how her husband views her worth. John Steinbeck wrote this short story in 1938. At this time, women in American had earned the right to vote, but were struggling to be seen as more than just housewives. Using the development Elisa Allen’s character, Steinbeck reflects on the place of women in American society.

Like the American woman in the 1920’s and 30’s, Elisa is desperate to have her husband acknowledge her worth on the farm. It almost as if she feels like her skills are being wasted on gardening and that she could play a bigger part. Her husband jokes “You've got a gift with things," Henry observed. "… I wish you'd work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big." (315) Elisa doesn’t realize that he is joking and is delighted. She really wants to get out of the garden and be seen as a larger contributor on the farm. When she realizes Henry is joking she retreats back to concerning herself with the flowers.

Steinbeck describes Elisa’s physical appearance as a confusion of male and female features, just like the role of women in 1930 was confusing. We know that she is a woman, but her female features are completely covered. “Her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume,” (314) and she had “a man's black hat pulled low down over her eyes, clod-hopper shoes” (314). Her “figured print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron” (314). Steinbeck eludes to the fact that her femininity is almost completely covered up. Typically gardening is considered women’s work, but Steinbeck uses masculine words like strong, over eager and powerful to describe how Elisa tends to the flowers. Even the way she tends to the chrysanthemum buds is described in a harsh way. She uses her “strong...