The Chrysanthemums Essay

David Van Nostrand

Professor McRaniels

English Comp II

13 September 2006

The Chrysanthemums Essay

In his short story “The Chrysanthemums,” John Steinbeck writes of a married couple and examines the psychology of the unhappiness in their marriage. It is a good depiction of marriage in the 1900’s which followed traditional roles, where the man is the chief breadwinner and the wife tends to household duties. The setting and the story’s protagonist, Elisa Allen, offer similar traits after his own birth place of Salinas, California and his first wife, Carol Steinbeck. Although she is just considered a housewife, Elisa Allen also carries another passion of gardening and growing Chrysanthemums. Steinbeck uses vivid illustration with regard to the environment to make the setting seem callous and closed off, “The high gray-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world.” (255) This environment is cause for Elisa Allen’s need to have more affection in her life and gives reason for her using gardening as an expression of all the suppressed romance she feels. The climax of the story comes when Elisa is visited by a stranger who has gotten lost and their ensuing conversation and the outcome of the stranger’s actions.

Elisa and Henry Allen are noted to be a fairly normal middle aged couple who live in rural California. Henry Allen is a hard working rancher who raises and sells cattle, assisted by a ranch hand. Elisa Allen is a housewife who maintains the country household and tends to gardening, growing Chrysanthemum flowers. Steinbeck gives many instances in the story talking about Elisa’s strength and her maternal instincts in giving so much care and attention to her gardening. It is not hard to divulge from the story that she may be compensating raising the flowers with so much care, due to the fact that she has never had any children with her husband Henry. He tends to the typical male roles of provider and overall decision maker around the house, but has left a void within his wife.

While Elisa is gardening and Henry is rounding up cattle, a stranger comes to the house by way of horse drawn wagon. The stranger is a gruff traveling repairman who has drove from his normal path looking to try and get some work from this house. The conversation between Elisa and the stranger sets the rising action and the eventual climax of the story. Initially Elisa is resentful of the mans offers to fix anything around the house, but when the man inquires into her gardening and flowers, she becomes more interested. Elisa is elated at the fact the stranger wants to take some of her flower sprouts to another of his customers, “I’ll put them in a flower pot, and you can take them right with you.” (258) This interest from the stranger gives Elisa a sense of value and feeling of being needed. The man is using her vulnerability to get something he wants. With this new sense of feeling needed, she then finds some work for the man to do, and she lets him fix some pots. After he is done, he gets back into his wagon and sets off down the road, but not before Elisa cautions one final time reiterating instructions about the flower buds she has