John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums is a story about the character Elisa who is regarded sometimes as beautiful and other times as a strong masculine thirty-year-old women and the chrysanthemum flower is a symbol for her in the tale. Throughout the story Elisa has an internal conflict of her identity and gender roles that she is conformed to. She is envious of what the men are allowed to do and what she is not. Throughout the story she struggles from being a strong and masculine seeming person, to a beautiful and dainty feminine figure. Just how there is almost two different versions of her there are two different versions of chrysanthemum flowers, the garden hardy chrysanthemum and the exhibition chrysanthemum. The garden hardy chrysanthemum is not the prettier of the chrysanthemum but it is one of the strongest, they are newer flowers that are able to withstand wintering, they are self-sufficient they need not assistance in staking, withstanding wind and rain, and blooming. The exhibition chrysanthemum is considered one of the prettiest flowers but they are fairly weak and need a lot of maintenance. One can draw the connection between when Elisa is furiously cutting away at last years stalk stems and her looking at the new stems as her frustrated with the previous weakness of herself and is hopeful for her newest chance of being different represented with the new stems, the text says, “The chrysanthemum stems seemed too small and easy for her energy” she then looks towards the men who were discussing business and looks back to the chrysanthemums clears the leaves and looks at the new stems. With the setting being in December new stems can only mean that the newest chrysanthemums are the garden hardy kind and that the old chrysanthemums were dead by December even though chrysanthemums are the flower of November, that the previous chrysanthemums were of the exhibition kind, this enforces that she is trying to be like the garden hardy chrysanthemum now instead of being the exhibition chrysanthemum.

The next instance of her relating to chrysanthemums is when the Stranger visits, there is some further reinforcement of flowers for the story when the Stranger first arrives, “The horse and the donkey drooped like unwatered flowers.” after a while of Elisa and the Stranger talking about why the Stranger is there and where he is from he says, “I ain't in any hurry, ma am. I go from Seattle to San Diego and back every year. Takes all my time. About six months each way. I aim to follow nice weather.” To which Elisa says, “That sounds like a nice kind of a way to live”, which one can infer that how a flower usually survives in the world is by pollinating and spreading its flowers to places that can sustain them is how Elisa would like to live, simply chrysanthemums like nice weather so does Elisa. More conversation goes on between Elisa and the Stranger and Elisa is still standoffish with the Stranger until he starts to talk about her chrysanthemums, which much like talking to someone you tend to open up more when the topic is about you. The Stranger then says in his conversation with Elisa when the Stranger is talking about giving the lady up the road chrysanthemums and Elisa informs him that you plant the sprout not the seed and the Stranger says, “I s'pose I can't take none to her, then.” to which Elisa cries, “Why yes you can”, where one can make a connection to travel, that Elisa is stuck where she is much like a flower rooted to where they stand, and she argues that chrysanthemums can travel much like she could under a certain circumstance. The flower for it to travel must be in a pot, and for Elisa to travel she must be strong and masculine like the men that are allowed to travel. 

The last and most significant piece of evidence that the chrysanthemum flowers are a symbol of Elisa is when she is giving the Stranger the chrysanthemum flower. "She'd sure like to have some, ma'am. You say they're nice ones?"

"Beautiful," she said. "Oh, beautiful." Her eyes shone. She tore off the battered hat and shook out her dark pretty hair. "I'll put them in a flower pot, and you can take them right with you. Come into the yard." She is calling the chrysanthemum flowers beautiful then proceeds to show her beauty, she takes off the mans hat and shows the stranger her dark pretty hair, where one can infer that she is talking in relation of herself and the chrysanthemums. She then starts to talk about the “planting hands”. “Well, I can only tell you what it feels like… Everything goes right down into your fingertips. You watch your fingers work. They do it themselves… You can feel how it is… They never make a mistake. They're with the plant. Do you see? Your fingers and the plant. You can feel that, right up your arm. They know. They never make a mistake. You can feel it.” She can not tell him how to take care of the flower, she is telling the Stranger how it is to be the flower, what it feels like to be the flower, and that she is part of the flower by it going all the way to her finger tips. She then becomes very passionate to then say, “I've never lived as you do, but I know what you mean. When the night is dark—why, the stars are sharp-pointed, and there's quiet. Why, you rise up and up! Every pointed star gets driven into your body. It's like that. Hot and sharp and—lovely” where on can infer that she is experiencing what she would think a chrysanthemum experiences, mainly from the mention of rising up and up in the night, whereas when flowers grow one doesn’t physically watch them grow and with the passage of night it can seem that, that is when the flowers grow. Also when Elisa is crouched low, looking up to the Stranger, breasts swelling passionately it can give the impression of her trying to look impressive or attractive, but what can look impressive of attractive from the ground? Why not  a flower, a chrysanthemum to be exact. She then gives the stranger the chrysanthemum and he goes on his way, she is then filled with a sort of energy, to which a reader can infer that she feels that way because her chrysanthemum is now a journey away from the farm, experiencing something new. To which is the reason Elisa is crushed when she sees the flower on the side of the road, that says the Stranger did not care about her and that this once strong and promising chrysanthemum is now lying withered and defeated in the road.
