'It must be very nice. I wish women could do such things'" (Steinbeck 182)
After seeing the chrysanthemums that she had given the salesman thrown onto the ground, she can no longer believe the words that he told her. When forced back into female domination, Elias "remains a pitiable victim of male domination and female disadvantage" (Renner 306)
He tells her, "I sold those thirty head of three-year-old steers. Got nearly my own price, too" (Steinbeck)
"The Chrysanthemums has been called John Steinbeck's best short fiction, and some rank it with the world's greatest short stories." (Haggstrom, Page 1) He wrote the story just a few years before the United States entered World War II
The main problem in their marriage is "a more deeply rooted dysfunction between Henry and Elisa -- a lack of communication." (Palmerino, Page 164) He cares for her and makes efforts to please her, but their marriage lacks a more than superficial emotional connection
On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot." (Steinbeck, "The Chrysanthemums," Page 1) A deserted ranch in the vivacious state of California, during the winter -- the reader should be alerted that there will be tensions in the story and something is awry, restless, or unbalanced: "…fields seemed to be bathed in pale cold sunshine, but there was no sunshine in the valley now in December…It was a time of quiet and of waiting
"Elisa has probably had to bear many hardships; but when she later sees her "babies' at the side of the road where the tinker has thrown them, she is catapulted into sadness." (Thomas, Page 2) In this way, the flowers are symbols for Elisa
Steinbeck shows how she nurtures the flowers, just like children. He writes, "Back at the chrysanthemum bed she pulled out the little crisp shoots, trimmed off the leaves of each one with her scissors and laid it on a small orderly pile" (Steinbeck)