The Chrysanthemums By John Steinbeck Analysis

The Chrysanthemums

John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 to John Ernst Steinbeck and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. He was raised in the small rural town of Salinas Valley California. During his summer breaks John worked on nearby ranches and when he got older with the migrant workers on a neighbor's ranch. While working on the ranches and with the migrant workers he noticed firsthand how hard life can be. From his work experience on the ranches and working the migrant workers and seeing what’s going on around him he was able to write some of Americans best novels, for example “Of Mice and Men” (1937),”The Grapes of Wrath” (1939), and “The Forgotten Village” (1941).(biographybase.com)

The story “The Chrysanthemums” takes place in John
Steinbeck’s home town of Salinas Valley, California. It takes place close to the end of the great depression (1937-1938). The main charters are Elisa Allen, Elisa yellow chrysanthemums, a tinker (a sales person/ swindler), and Henry Allen (Elisa husband). Henry is a cattle rancher. Elisa is a stay at home wife who tends to her garden of chrysanthemums. Some say that the character of Elisa is based off of John’s first wife Carol Henning, who stayed home and took care of John’s mother when she got sick and took care of the house chores. Then we have the a tinker (a sales person/ swindler) who’s main goal is to take people’s money or talk people out of their possessions.

The story opens at the Allen ranch.
Henry is talking with two guys, who he is trying to sell his cattle to them for a good price. Elisa is in her garden tending to her chrysanthemums (her babies). After Henry and the two guys come to an agreement Henry comes up to the fence and comments about how nice her chrysanthemums look. Elisa then states that her mother also has the same gift with gardening. Henry then suggests they go out to dinner. Elisa agrees then Henry jokingly mentions going to the fights. Once Henry goes back to work on gathering up the cattle he just sold, as he dose tattered cover wagon driven by a tinker pulls up to the house. The tinker asks Elisa if there are any pots that need to be repair. She tells him no many times, and then the tinker notices and praises Elisa’s pride and joy, her chrysanthemums. At the praise she gets from him about her chrysanthemums her mood changes from slight irritation to delight. The tinker tells Elisa that there is a woman down his route that would love to have chrysanthemums like she has. So Elisa puts some sprouts she has in a red flower pot with damp sand. She tells him how to take care of them. Then she finds two saucepans for the tinker to fix before he goes on his way. With Elisa on a confidence bust she heads inside to get ready for her date with her husband. As they leave for dinner in their roadster, Elisa notices the chrysanthemum sprouts that she gave the tinker on the side of the road and ask her husband if they can
have wine with their dinner. After a few minutes passed she wonders aloud if the boxers at the prize fights hurt each other very much and whether women ever attend. Henry asks Elisa if she would like to go to the fights, but she answers no, “it will be enough if we can have wine.” She then starts cries, unnoticed by Henry. (enotes.com)

The main theme in the short story “The Chrysanthemums” is Elisa’s frustration. She is frustrated by the fact she has no kids to look after and pass on her knowledge how to grow beautiful chrysanthemums. Her chrysanthemums are like her children, most people believe in this time that if a woman cannot or does not have kids, she was seen as let down to the family. And some have argued that the story is an attack against feminism. (enotes.com). Again comparing Elisa to his first wife Carol. Carol and John never had any kids; she was a hard worker around the family house and took care of John’s ailing mother. (DVD)

People can define Elisa in many ways. Same say she “gives a positive overview in Steinbeck’s personal outlook on the 1930’s life and mentality during the great depression.” (Higdon), when another says “Elisa is responding as a dog” (Sullivan), and a third person might agree with the first person by saying “gives a more positive look on the story, with Elisa being his focus.” (Minter). (associatedcontent.com).

Minter then goes on to say that Steinbeck has a way of writing and capturing the human nature of things that many people are not willing to see. He also touches on the aspect of mother nature. We can see this in Elisa by the way she takes care of her flowers. She takes care of them like a mother would a child. She would “die” if anything would happen to them, and she kind of does when she sees the sprouts that she gave to the tinker on the side of the road. It is a little not right that she has this attachment to her flowers, and makes one think that she is not all there. And one can say that Elisa not being all there is brought on by her husband by his lack of attention he gives her and his lack of understanding his wife. (Minter)

Sullivan compares Elisa to a dog looking for some kind of attention, and she gets this attention from the tinker.
A good example of this is when he complements her chrysanthemums and that a woman down his rout would love chrysanthemums like this and she gives some spouts to me, and then she finds something for him to fix. By saying her flower are lovely, she gets the feeling of self-worth and finds something to fix as a way of saying thank you for noticing my hard work; like a dog is always looking to be praised. Another way she is like a dog is how she protects her flowers form anything harmful in her garden, like a dog will protects its master and the master’s family. Elisa even tries to change this but every time she tries she does not get the response she wants, her husband does reacts but not in the way she was expecting.
(Sullivan)

Then Higdon has a positive overview in Steinbeck’s personal outlook on the 1930’s life and mentality during the great depression. During the time of the depression the man of the house work and the wife took care of the kids and the cooking and cleaning. In the case of Elisa her flowers took the place of kids, and if anything would happen to them her spirit would die. Also her husband’s “lack of seeing his wife as a sexual being is also fatally damaging to her spirit and he sees her dressing up at the end of the day as an affront to his own masculinity”( Higdon).