The Chrysanthemums- John Steinbeck

Abstract:One day a woman, Elisa, is gardening. It is winter and very foggy. She is really good at gardening and grows beautiful, tall Chrysanthemums. Her husband has left to herd some animals, and then they are going out to eat and to a movie to celebrate his sale of cattle. While she is gardening, an old wagon then pulls up. The man in the truck fixes things and travels up and down the coast all year. He keeps on asking her if he can fix anything, and she says no. He then asks about her flowers. She then becomes very excited and prepares some stalks of the chrysanthemums to be sent to one of his customers who had asked him to keep an eye open for their seeds. Elisa likes the man very much especially because of the way he describes the flowers. She even attempts to touch him, but then snatches her hand back before she does. She then goes and finds him two pans to mend. When he leaves, she gets ready to go out with her husband. Her husband notices how she looks different. He says that she looks stronger. On their way to eat, Elisa sees something in the road. When they pass it, she sees that is is her chrysanthemums. They then pass the wagon. Elisa then begins to cry, but she won't let her husband see.

Response: Elisa is strong woman like Granny Weatherall. At the end when she hides her face so her husband does not see that she is crying, she does it because she thinks that her crying will show weakness, and she is not weak. She is strong to because she would not let the man sway her to let him mend her pot because she did need one mended. She let him mend her pot though because she liked him when he talked to her about the chrysanthemums. She was jealous of the man too. She wished that she too could travel up and down the coast in a wagon. She gets angry when he says that a woman could not do it because she believes that she could. When her husband notices that she looks strong, he notices because I think she fully realizes that she could do whatever she wanted to. She has control over her life and no one could tell her what to do. Her demeanor changes. She hides her tears at the end because she feels like she can't show her weakness because if she did then that would just prove once again society's stereotype that women are weak. She wants to show that women can do whatever they set their mind to. Just like when she asks her husband if she could go to the fight. She doesn't want to go, but she knows that she could. When he says that she really wouldn't like it, that just brings her down even more from the blow already that the man threw her flowers out.