By reading John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums, it becomes evident that Elisa’s emotional breakdown is not at all random or unwarranted. Elisa acts out and feels unsatisfied without romance and intimacy in her marriage, coping by putting her energy into her flowers, nurturing them as she would a child, and immediately falling for the tinker, yet also trying to distance herself from the traditional role of women, by wearing men’s clothes and working outside. 

Traditionally, a woman is expected to stay at home. Her purpose is limited. She cooks, she cleans, and she raises the children. Elisa’s life is very much like that, with one notable exception. Elisa has no children. This fact is not explicitly mentioned, but it hangs over Elisa, and profoundly affects how she feels about her role in life, and her relationship with her husband. Instead of rearing children, Elsa dedicates extra time to her chrysanthemum garden, “Cutting down the old year's chrysanthemum stalks with a pair of short and powerful scissors. / her work with the scissors was over-eager, over-powerful. The chrysanthemum stems seemed too small and easy for her energy” (1). This unused energy, unrealized potential is a result of Elisa nurturing her flowers as she would a child. The flowers are a method to cope with this absence in her life, but they’re not enough. A garden doesn’t need to be fed three times a day. It won’t need to be put to bed. A child would keep Elisa busy, but the garden doesn’t quite do the job. Nonetheless, “She spread the leaves and looked down among the close-growing stems. No aphids were there, no sowbugs or snails or cutworms. Her terrier fingers destroyed such pests before they could get started” (1). As a result of all her extra energy, Elisa is able to protect these flowers from harm rather easily. She squashes the bugs, but she can’t fix the problems in her own life. Elisa’s obsessive control over these flowers is a substitute for her lack of control in her own life. The flowers are a source of pride for her, “Beautiful,’ she said. ‘Oh, beautiful.’ Her eyes shone” when asked about the flowers (4). These chrysanthemums are vital to Elisa’s happiness; yet also symbols of the children she’ll never have. 

Elisa’s dissatisfaction with her unfulfilling life is further explored in her interactions with the Tinkerer. When the Tinkerer first arrives, Elisa actually laughs. She is eager to socialize with this complete stranger. He’s hardly said a word and she’s interested, if only because it interrupts her obsessive daily routine. When asked by the Tinkerer if she has anything for him to fix, Elisa initially responds with a no. Then, he asks, “What's them plants, ma'am?’ The irritation and resistance melted from Elisa's face” (4). Although he doesn’t know much about flowers at all, the Tinkerer is able to keep Elisa enraptured simply by having an actual conversation with her, feigning interest in what occupies her during the day. By comparison, her interactions with her own husband are stiff, and awkward. She responds to her husband’s genuine jokes with, “eyes sharpened. ‘Maybe I could do it, too. I've a gift with things, all right” (2) when asked if she would help the apples grow. And again despite her husband’s joking tone, Elisa, “said breathlessly. ‘No, I wouldn’t like fights” (2) when ‘asked’ if she would like to see one. And while the Tinkerer leaves Elisa feeling great about herself, her husband simply calls her nice, and “Strong enough to break a calf over your knee, happy enough to eat it like a watermelon” (7), which isn’t anything close to what she wanted to be called after her transformative bath. The Tinkerer makes Elisa happy by being fake, molding himself to appeal to her, while her husband’s honesty makes her feel inadequate and unloved.

As a result of these inescapable feelings, Elisa attempts to skirt them by denying her gender role. To nurture her garden, she wears, “a man's black hat pulled low down over her eyes, clodhopper shoes, a figured print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron with four big pockets to hold the snips” (1). This is a form of personal protest for Elisa, a denial of what is expected of her. She is not the perfect, beautiful housewife. She works outside, she gets dirty, she wears men’s clothes. If Henry won’t allow her to have a child, she will do the things she can do herself in her own way. This protest crumples under the attention of the Tinkerer, resulting in Elisa putting “on her newest underclothing and her nicest stockings and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness. She worked carefully on her hair, pencilled her eyebrows and rouged her lips” (6). Elisa reveled in The Tinker’s gaze, desiring to feel that way all time. Elisa fooled herself into believing that if she presented herself more traditionally her husband would be affectionate once again. This temporary revival is torn down by the reveal of the chrysanthemums on the side of the road, and Elisa’s subsequent realization that The Tinkerer was putting on a show to get her money. 

Elisa acts out and feels unsatisfied without romance and intimacy in her marriage, coping by putting her energy into her flowers, nurturing them as she would a child, and immediately falling for the tinker’s tricks, yet also trying to distance herself from the traditional role of women, by wearing men’s clothes and working outside. Elisa’s journey in The Chrysanthemums illustrates how the traditional gender roles assigned to women are restrictive and ultimately harmful.