The Chrysanthemums

A short story set in central California's Salinas Valley, in a December during the Great Depression, "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck expresses through subtext a thirty-five year old woman's struggle with her identity. The story opens in the quiet setting of a farm in the Salinas River Valley and "Elisa Allen working in her flower garden, ...her figure ... blocked and heavy in her gardening costume, a man's black hat pulled down over her eyes, clod-hopper shoes, a figured print dress covered by a big corduroy apron with four big pockets to hold the snips...." This description expres…