Veiled Femininity

Veiled Femininity

In John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," Steinbeck introduces the reader to Elisa Allen. He creates a vivid picture of Elisa by using symbolism and settings throughout the story. Steinbeck's choice of setting, a secluded ranch in a mountain valley, gives the reader a sense of isolation, which Elisa must experience everyday. Although she lives on this ranch with her husband, Henry, they don't seem to have a very close relationship in the story. Because of this isolation, Elisa seems to have an uncommon bond with her flowers: she relates herself with her chrysanthemums. Elisa's need to feel strong is the reason she hides her femininity and protects herself from own feelings.

While describing Elisa's clothing, Steinbeck shows us that Elisa is uncomfortable with herself. Elisa spends much of her time gardening in her "costume, a man's black hat pulled down over her eyes, clodhopper shoes, a figured print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron with four big pockets" and "heavy leather gloves to protect her hands while she worked" (260). By using the word "costume" in Elisa's description, Steinbeck seems to be telling us that Elisa is hiding herself in her clothing. What she actually seems to be hiding is her femininity: covering her "dark pretty hair" with a "battered hat" (263); wearing big work shoes; and the only feminine clothing she wears, a dress, covered up by a work apron, which makes her figure look "blocked and heavy" (260). Even though she wears her gloves while cutting the stems from her chrysanthemums, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty because she takes them off so she can "put her strong fingers down into the forest of new green chrysanthemum sprouts" (260), and when she plants new shoots for the tinker, she "kneeled on the ground by the starting bed and dug up the sandy soil with her fingers and scooped it into the bright new flower pot. Then she picked up the little pile of shoots she had prepared. With her strong fingers she pressed them into the sand and tamped around them with her knuckles" (263). Elisa doesn't mind taking her gloves off while working with her flowers because she loves them so much and wants to be as close to them as she can. After all, she has "planter's hands" (264) and uses them to lovingly pull small buds from the flowers she treats so carefully. This is a very private part of Eliza: she's demonstrating her love for her flowers, which seems to be something she doesn't show to her husband. She hides her feelings from him, just as she hides her femininity in her clothing.

The chrysanthemums, being a yonic symbol, seem to symbolize Eliza's femininity: she keeps them in a fence "protected from cattle and dogs and chickens," just as her femininity is protected by all of the manly clothing she wears (260). She wears her gloves while she is using "a pair of short and powerful scissors," (260) and she "pulled on the gardening glove again" (261) when Henry appears behind her. The scissors are a classic phallic symbol, and, of course, her husband is a man. Elisa continues demonstrating her reluctance to show aspects of her femininity in plain view of anything masculine until the tinker appears and shows an interest in her chrysanthemums, which to Elisa, is the same as showing an interest in her femininity. Her husband only shows mild interest in her flowers as he says, "You've got a strong new crop coming" (261), and so when the tinker expresses interest in them, she becomes very excited.

After her conversation with the tinker, Elisa feels mixed emotions about herself. When Elisa ran into the house to take a bath, she "tore off her soiled clothes and flung them into the corner," suggesting that she no longer wants to hide in her work clothes. She "scrubbed herself with a little block of pumice, legs and thighs, loins and chest and arms, until her skin was