The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck

"The Chrysanthemums"

John Steinbeck, in his short story "The Chrysanthemums" depicts the trials of a woman attempting to gain power in a man's world. Elisa Allen tries to define the boundaries of her role as a woman in such a closed society. While her environment is portrayed as a tool for social repression, it is through nature in her garden where Elisa gains and shows off her power. As the story progresses, Elisa has trouble extending this power outside of the fence that surrounds her garden. Elisa learns but does not readily accept, that she possesses a feminine power weak for the time, not the masculine one she had tried so hard to achieve through its imitation.

The action of the story opens with Elisa Allen working in her garden. She is surrounded by a wire fence, which physically is there to protect her flowers from the farm animals. This barrier symbolizes her life. She is fenced in from the real world, from a man's world. It is a smaller, on-earth version of the environment in which they live. As Elisa works on her garden, she looks through the fence out to where her husband, Henry, is talking with two men in business suits. They look at a tractor and smoke, manly things, as they conclude their man's work. As she looks out to these men, we look at Elisa. Although she is doing the "feminine" work of gardening, she is dressed like a man. She wore a black hat low on her forehead to cover her hair, thick leather gloves covered her hands, and clodhopper shoes covering her small woman's feet. A "big corduroy apron" covered the dress making "her figure look blocked and heavy". Unconsciously, as she looks through her fence at the men talking business, she is trying to cover up her feminine qualities. She longs to be in their position and possess their characteristics.

As she does her gardening, something she enjoys and excels in, "Her face was lean and strong... eager and mature and handsome". Her use of the scissors is described as "over-eager" and "over-powerful". All of these characteristics are usually masculine adjectives. But in this case they describe a woman attempting or at least imagining living as a part of such a man's world. Yet Elisa's power is not used for "masculine" activities; in fact, her power is derived from a feminine source, nature. Mother Nature, a female, controls the environment. This female power is part of matriarchal lineage since Elisa'a mother also "could stick anything in the ground and make it grow". She enjoys coming into contact with the earth as she digs and pushes the dirt around her chrysanthemums. She destroyed pests with her fingers and also put these fingers "into the forest of new green chrysanthemum sprouts that were growing around the old roots". Her fingers are described as "terrier," literally of the earth Elisa is seemingly ambivalent about which side of herself to show to her husband and the world. While she wants to seem strong, it seems to violate her role of being the pretty wife. When her husband suddenly comes up behind her, she immediately pulls on her gloves again. This could be to cover her dirty hands, but it also covers them, hiding her femininity. Nevertheless, she is proud of her gardening for "in her tone and on her face there was a little smugness" with her husband's compliment. When Henry even suggests she could use her talents in the apple orchard "her eyes sharpened". Elisa shows off her power saying, "'I've a gift with things, all right'". The apple orchard is part of the man's world, involving growing food for consumption. This is outside of her fenced in garden. As her husband comes to talk with her, while she enjoys showing off her garden, she seems to feel sub-subservient to him. As he kids her about going to the prize fights later that day, she responds in a breathless tone that she would not like them, uncomprehending the joking nature of his comment. She goes back to her work, back to her orderly world of the earth and the chrysanthemums.

Next appears the eventual antagonist, the man who will change, and then change back Elisa's feelings on female power relationships with men. The stranger pulls up in his spring-wagon to sell his services, which is fixing household, metallic items. As he converses with her, the man tells of his assiduous travels up and down the West Coast and asks for directions back to the main road. Elisa notices the "calloused hands he rested on the wire fence were cracked, and every crack was a black line". This man also worked with his hands in nature. Still attempting to show her feminine side, "she stood up and shoved the thick scissors in her apron pocket". Yet, also with this action Elisa also may have recognized she was about to enter into a normal male business conversation involving bargaining and denying services. Since she knew this man would probably ask for something to fix, she hid her scissors. There is a slight undertone of sexual undercurrents as the man rubbed his finger on the wire. Elisa removed her gloves and then played with the man's hat. But if this is the case it is only Elisa attempting to show off her feminine qualities. The traveler gets right down to business. Elisa seems to understand and then take on the role of a hardened businessman. With the man's first inquiry, she refuses and "her eyes hardened with resistance". Even a third time she refuses him saying, "'I tell you I have nothing like that for you to do'". In this role as businessman, Elisa has succeeded, but only for the moment.

Elisa's source of power is also her point of weakness. After failing for a fourth time to interest Elisa, in fact, only succeeding in irritating her, he asks about her flowers. This piques Elisa's interest to the highest peak; suddenly her face undergoes a noticeable change: "the irritation and resistance melted from Elisa's face". She is able to talk to a man about something, inform him of something she knows more about than he does. Elisa's innocence in the business world does not allow her to understand the underhanded tricks men play to get what they want. To the reader it seems fairly obvious that the stranger has only asked about these flowers to get on Elisa's good side, but she is oblivious to the fact. As becomes apparent, the peddler has taken the tactic of trying to connect with Elisa on a personal level so she will have emotions for him, ultimately buying his service. An example comes when he quickly recants his statement that the chrysanthemums smell "nasty" at first, to agreeing that they have a "good