John Steinbeck’s Short Story, The Chrysanthemums

She tried to hide the charm of a woman wearing "man's black hat ... clumsy shoes, heavy leather gloves" and "big corduroy apron." John Steinbeck's short story "The Chrysanthemums" introduces Elisa Allen. Elisa lived for a period of time after the Great Depression, when the women's rights issue was becoming a public concern. Steinbeck explained the struggle for equality of women with the role of Elisa Allen. She is a woman who has been deprived of social, personal and sexual achievements in a male dominated world.

In the context of romance and sex, women are generally regarded as as beautiful as flowers. In John Steinbeck's short story "The Chrysanthemums", Elisa Allen has never received such recognition. She is a strong woman, but she is frustrated because her husband has never romantically praised her. This kind of depression only deepens as she feels the need to have no children and become a mother. She found her frustration in the garden where she planted a beautiful chrysanthemum.

John Steinbeck's short story "The Chrysanthemums" is about a proud, strong woman named Elisa Allen who is dissatisfied with his present life. Her frustration is not derived from the fact that children and husbies envy her romance as a woman. The only way she was depressed was her garden, where she planted a beautiful chrysanthemum. Steinbeck uses Erisa and chrysanthemum as a symbol of the heart of each woman. First of all, the chrysanthemum symbolizes the children of Elisa. She leans against her garden and treats the chrysanthemum with love and compassion just like handling her own child. Elisa protects her flowers very much and places a barbed wire around them; she ascertains "grasshopper, lack of insects or snails or tigers". "Before they started activities, her beagle's fingers were very lazy" (240). These pests cause natural damage to flowers, just like other moms, she removes them before hurting them.