Steinbeck's “Chrysanthemums”: how limitations limited Elisa's quest for personal fulfillment “The Chrysanthemums”, “a brilliant piece of writing, perhaps the best story "that Steinbeck ever wrote," as Jay Parini puts it, in his article "Chrysanthemums" by Lawrence and Steinbeck, is one of this writer's most interesting and ambiguous stories. Steinbeck's short story shows the reader the reality of women in the 19th century and during the Great Depression. To show this reality, Steinbeck uses the world and behavior of a woman, Elisa Allen, thirty-five years old, a farmer's wife, who is surrounded by multiple boundaries that prevent her from living a happy and satisfying life. The author presents the story to us using personified landscapes as well as metaphors to better express Elisa's character and fertility. The author describes a very precise and careful landscape, and elements such as rain and fog in the Salinas Valley represent the husband and wife. However, most of the story focuses on Elisa's duality between the true self and the desired self. The boundary between the period and the domination of men over women is strongly reinforced in Elisa's life. Given the time period in which this short story took place, it is very easy to see Elisa's frustration with a closed-off routine. During this era when the Great Depression was a reality, women's affairs were defined as that which was private while conversely, men's affairs were considered as whatever was public. We can clearly see the distortion of this reality early in the story when Steinbeck recounts "Elisa Allen, [was] working in her flower garden...[When she] saw Henry, her husband, talking to two men in costume affairs" (Stein ...... middle of paper ......e the other sex, unjustly distributed punishment. Nevertheless, like a chrysanthemum root cut before its flowering, it would "grow back" (Steinbeck186). Works cited Skredsvig, Kari Meyers. “Women's space, women's place: topoanalysis in Steinbeck's “Chrysanthemums”” Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica 26.1 (January-June 2000): 59. -67 in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic Vol. 135. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Web Resources February 15, 2014. Palmerino, Gregory J. “Steinbeck's Chrysanthemums” +. Gale. Web. February 14, 2014. Steinbeck, John. “The Language Equation” Ed. RM Stambaugh and CM Clark, 2008. Print. Parini Jay. “The chrysanthemums of Laurence and Steinbeck.” Class document.