The flowerpot which she gives to the tinker and which he empties out onto the road is another loaded symbol, since it represents the female form, but emptied of its flourishing beauty and, with it, its ability to grow and flower.Īnother key symbol in the story is the contrast between clarity and vagueness, between Elisa’s eyes (as ‘clear as water’, we are told) and the fog that envelops the valley. Indeed, in the opening paragraph of the story, Steinbeck describes the valley as resembling a closed pot, an image which at once summons the idea of Elisa’s body as well as the sexual repression she feels as Henry’s wife. The valley is figured as a female space, a dip in the land that is mirrored by the pots and pans which are a symbol of the tinker’s trade. But we, in turn, are left wondering what she means by describing herself as ‘strong’: the implication is that the word no longer merely denotes her skills planting flowers and tending the land.īut what makes ‘The Chrysanthemums’ Steinbeck’s greatest short story is his masterly use of symbolism. However, she does assert that she has realised just how strong she is: something she had never fully grasped before.
When her husband returns and compliments her appearance, she can only respond by questioning what he means by words such as ‘nice’ and ‘strong’: her encounter with the tinker has awakened something within her, but it has been suppressed for so long that she is unable to identify what it means. Steinbeck quickly paints a picture of the tinker as a dark stranger: he is a big man, described as ‘brooding’, dressed in a black hat and suit, and with callused hands whose lines are black.
When she gives the tinker the flowers and he accepts them, this symbolises his recognition of her as a beautiful ‘bloomer’, much like the flowers his rejection and abandonment of the flowers in the road symbolises his rejection of her as a woman deserving of romantic interest. The chrysanthemums represent Elisa herself: she, like them, is a ‘late bloomer’, a woman in her mid-thirties who has, we infer, led a rather sexually repressed life as a dutiful wife until now. Werlock notes in her analysis of the story in her American Short Story (Companion to Literature Series)) and second in taking an interest in her pride and joy, the chrysanthemums – has aroused within the mind (and body) of this repressed farmer’s wife. When she talks about the ‘hot and sharp’ and ‘lovely’ sensation of the stars driving their points into the body, it is obvious that she is thinking of other things which the tinker – first in being a variation on the character type known as the romantic dark stranger (as Abby H. She pays him for his work, but counters his assumptions about women (he tells her that the tinker’s itinerant lifestyle is no life for a woman) by telling him that she could do his job just as well.īut Steinbeck’s ‘The Chrysanthemums’ focuses on the latent sexual symbolism within the flowers blooming and the imagery that Elisa uses to describe their growth is clearly intended to suggest an erotic subtext. Ashamed by her behaviour, she finds him two saucepans to fix. The tinker then brings the conversation back to his trade, subtly hinting that he won’t be able to eat supper tonight unless he makes some money.
She has become very eager and excited and in her passion she almost touches the man’s trousers as she kneels in front of him.
She gives him instructions for how to grow the flowers, for him to pass on to the lady. Elisa allows the man to come into the yard so she can give him the pot. She had expressed an interest in growing some, and Elisa readily offers to place some sprouts into some soil in a flowerpot, for the tinker to give to the lady when he visits her. The tinker wins his way into Elisa’s good books by claiming that he knows a lady further down the road whose garden lacked chrysanthemums.