Self-Identity Through Symbolism in John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums"
“The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck illustrates through subtle symbolism a woman’s struggle for sexual identity. Elisa Allen, the protagonist of the story, cultivates a likeness of herself through her chrysanthemum garden, but fragments of her are also depicted by key objects encountered during the story. Elisa tries hard to project a tough, masculine image of herself rather than the feminine alternative, but the effort results in nothing but a façade.
“The Chrysanthemums” takes place in Salinas Valley, California, a site of isolation that builds an atmosphere of hopelessness. The winter fog sits “like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot,” (Steinbeck 359) which effectively foreshadows what a dead end Elisa’s life will reveal itself to be.
Elisa Allen is a woman capable of doing many things but has no outlet to showcase her skills due to the social implications imposed on her by the males of society. She is physically described as being “thirty-five…her face was lean and strong and her eyes were as clear as water…her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume, a man’s black hat pulled low over her eyes” (Steinbeck 360). Elisa can be seen as unhappy with her female role, and her unhappiness as a woman has led her to try to take on both more masculine activities and to put more fervor into the feminine tasks she already does—when she is pruning the chrysanthemum stalks, “her face was eager and mature and handsome; even her work with the scissors was over-eager, over-powerful” (Steinbeck 360), and her home is described as being a “hard-swept looking little house, with hard-polished windows” (Steinbeck 360). Men are generally described as being “handsome,” and the adjectives used to describe Elisa’s activities reflect the personality of someone who is either incredibly strong or incredibly determined.
Having proven she is able to raise
potentially award-winning chrysanthemum patches, she demonstrates her competence
in creation and nurturing—two skills she can only apply to her flower patch
because Henry, for whatever reasons, will not allow the introduction of children
to the family. In the meantime,
Elisa has no choice but to deal with her lack of children and apply her motherly
parenting skills to her flower bed. There is a fence around the flower garden to protect it from
animals, but interestingly enough it even seems to keep Henry Allen himself out.
By maintaining a garden, which requires some degree of physical labor, Elisa is
trying to pretend she is engaged in the activities of men, seeing as to how a
metaphorical fence keeps Elisa out of men's affairs.
Elisa carefully prunes the stalks of
the chrysanthemums, and ensures that in her flower patch “no aphids were
there, no sowbugs or snails or cutworms. Her
terrier fingers destroyed such pests before they could get started” (Steinbeck
360). The insects pose as natural
threats to Elisa’s “children” and so she eradicates them before they cause
any harm, much like any good mother would do.
As a result of her methodical tending to the flowers, as Henry points
out, “some of those yellow chrysanthemums…were ten inches across” (Steinbeck
360).
Upon the introduction of the traveling repairman, the chrysanthemums begin to represent something other than surrogate children—they represent Elisa herself. Chrysanthemums are unchanging, year-round, much like Elisa’s life. The flower patch is symbolic of her heart, which is closed off and rarely opened—not even for Henry—in order to sustain the tough, masculine image she effectively exhibits throughout most of the story. Her yearly blooms reach ten inches in diameter, which is a reflection of the degree of suppression Elisa feels in her mundane life; there is nothing else for her to do with herself in the coming years except tend to the flowers.
The traveler, unlike Henry, is able to gain access to Elisa’s garden, and therefore her heart as well. The traveling man initially does not seem like anything but a nuisance to Elisa, but as soon as he comments on Elisa’s garden, she “tore off the battered hat and shook out her dark pretty hair” (Steinbeck 363) and reveals her true female self. Elisa’s femininity renders her vulnerable to her impending swindle; the traveler conjures up a story about a woman up the road who has a garden stocked with everything but chrysanthemums, so Elisa interprets this as a sign of opportunity to complete another woman’s life while fulfilling her own. She packs some chrysanthemum shoots in sand, and puts them in a pot of her own so the traveler could give the package to the woman up the road. The pot, a recurring symbol throughout the story, once again has meaning—this particular pot is representative of Elisa’s body. The body is a receptacle for the numerous organs it is comprised of, and the heart (represented by the flowers) is one such organ. Besides, Elisa lives in a valley shaped like a closed pot; who better to turn to for hope of escape than a mender of pots? Elisa is obviously aching for acceptance as a female, because she does away with her masculine image long enough for the traveler to take advantage of her first by making her sympathetic to his plight of starvation, thus paying for his unnecessary services of fixing pots that aren’t broken, and then by tossing aside Elisa’s gift of the chrysanthemums. Elisa doesn’t know her chrysanthemums have been discarded for the more valuable pot, suggesting that the tinker cared more for Elisa’s physical self rather than her emotional self, so she continues on with preparing for a night on the town.
Scrubbing her skin raw with a block of pumice in an effort to remove the dirt collected through labor typically done by men, Elisa dons her finest outfit. Once again, Elisa shows her yearning for acceptance as a female, but even more so when Henry makes a simple remark about the way Elisa looks. Henry tells Elisa she looks “nice” but she demands to know what his definition of “nice” is. He then says she looks “different, strong, and happy,” to which Elisa demands his definition of “strong” (Steinbeck 365). Henry then tells her “you look strong enough to break a calf over your knee, happy enough to eat it like watermelon” (Steinbeck 365), but that is not the definition Elisa wants to hear—she wants reassurance that she is strong of spirit, not muscle. Henry obviously is not used to seeing Elisa trying to act naturally as a female, because he is not only surprised at her outstanding feminine appearance but when he tries to compliment her in a way that he believes will appease her, she actually takes offense.
On the way to Salinas for dinner and a movie, Elisa makes the unfortunate discovery of her most prized possession cast away on the side of the road. She comes to the sad realization that no part of her that really matters would ever survive escaping from her life of mediocrity, save for the pot, which was no longer hers. Not unlike her heart, Elisa’s flowers require constant care and would never survive a rough life on the road, which confirms that Elisa is not as tough and rugged as she would like to believe- Elisa will always be female at heart.
Works Cited
Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 2nd Compact ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003. 359-366.
Kopyright
(k) 2003
All rites reversed. Reprint what you like.