53 pages • 1 hour read
John SteinbeckThe Chrysanthemums
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Literary Devices
Conflict
Conflict is the clash between two people or forces that creates drama in a story. Elisa deal with two conflicts in this story. First, she encounters an external force: a patriarchal society. The external conflict has become internalized, however, and the second conflict is between Elisa’s masculine and feminine desires. The society in which Elisa lives considers many of her characteristics, such as her strength, energy, and passion, to be suitable only for men. This fact leaves Elisa confused and conflicted, though the reader does not sense that tension until the Tinker appears.
As soon as the Tinker’s wagon enters Elisa’s line of sight, the tension increases. The Tinker represents a life of freedom and adventure that is off-limits to women. He represents passion, excitement, and fulfillment. Elisa, repressed as she is, is attracted to the man and his lifestyle, but this attraction conflicts with her place in society. This conflict is most obvious at the climax of the story when Elisa reaches out to touch the Tinker’s leg. She obviously wants to touch him, but she remembers her place as a woman and housewife and pulls her hand back. The conflict never resolves, and Elisa becomes emotional and unpredictable, eventually crying on her way into the city with her husband.
Setting
The setting is where and when a story takes place. The setting of “The Chrysanthemums” serves as an allusion to Elisa’s life and sets the mood for the story. The macro-setting includes the Salinas Valley of California in the late 1930s. It also includes cultural and societal beliefs. At the beginning of the story, Steinbeck describes how the winter fog “closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world” (1). Steinbeck uses the setting to show how it feels to be Elisa Allen, closed off from the rest of the world. The lid-like fog also represents the way society contains and controls women. Steinbeck writes that there was no sunshine, the world was grey, and it was a time of “quiet and waiting” (1).
The micro-setting is Henry Allen’s ranch and, more specifically, Elisa’s flower garden. Steinbeck uses the micro-setting to tell the reader about Elisa. When describing the farmhouse and garden, he writes, “It was a hard-swept looking little house, with hard-polished windows, and a clean mud-mat on the front steps” (1). This tells the reader that Elisa is clean and neat, but also tough and hard.
Point of View
Point of view refers to the perspective the story is told from. Steinbeck chose to write “The Chrysanthemums” from the third person limited point of view, which means that the narrator follows one character and reveals the world from that character’s perspective, although the character does not tell the story themselves. Starting in the third paragraph, the reader enters Elisa’s perspective and stays there for the rest of the story. The reader only knows as much as Elisa does; for example, she doesn’t know what Henry or the Tinker is thinking. This technique allows the reader to become immersed in how it feels to be Elisa, to sympathize with her struggles and longings, and to understand her moods.
Realism
Literary realism is a style of writing in which authors tell stories about everyday life, avoiding epic tales, flowery language, and embellishments. “The Chrysanthemums” is a classic example of literary realism as it is about an average woman living an average life. The language Steinbeck uses, while descriptive, is not romantic. Elisa is a complex and relatable character forced to endure the realities of life as a woman in the early 1900s. Nothing extraordinary happens in the story. It focuses instead on character. It is also set in a real time and place, and Steinbeck’s familiarity with the Salinas Valley grounds the reader even more in the story.
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