What is the theme of the short story "The Chrysanthemums"?

The Chrysanthemums is a story of limitations and expectations, with the main character, Elisa, going though a range of emotions as she thinks about what kind of life she could have had in a different world or if she had made different choices.

What is the main point of "The Chrysanthemums"?

"the Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck is a book about limitations and opportunities. The story opens with the setting in the Salinas Valley, fogged in. This will have symbolism throught the story as the reader begins to see that Elisa is fogged in as well. The garden, her little escape is fenced in, and her house is as well. Though Elisa enjoys what she does with her flowers, Steinbeck makes it a point that from her fenced in garden, she watches men come and go. It's not as if, of course, Elisa is a prisoner, she could come and go as she pleased, but she has confined herself to this life. It is for that reason, then, when the traveling tinker comes, she becomes swept away, imagining her life if it was his. She of course cannot go, so she imagines her Chrysanthemums traveling for her, reaching places she has never been and will never go to. when she sees her flowers on the road, carelessly thrown away by the tinker her becomes sad and cries because once again, she is confined.

What is the central idea in Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums"?

In this story, John Steinbeck conveys the idea that suppressing one’s authentic self does not change one’s identity. The protagonist, Elisa, lives a contented, generally satisfied life on a small cattle ranch with her devoted, if dull, husband. Contemplating middle age, she has a nice house to take care of but no children. Although Steinbeck does not mention any deep creative strands she has abandoned, such as painting or music, he makes it clear that Elisa is a creative person. She fulfills that aspect of herself with gardening.

Elisa’s interactions with the itinerant tinker throw a new light onto what she has assumed is her contented existence. The intensity with which she speaks to the wanderer, and the romantic ideas she harbors about his unattached life, create some sparks. When she tries to fan those into flames, however, she realizes she is deceiving herself. As the tinker’s careless disposal of her flowers shocks her, she turns her energies into behaving in a way that she thinks will please her husband—not just having a lovely dinner, but also attending a fight. Instead, he finds her behavior so inauthentic that her animation has an undesired effect on both of them.

The complexity of Elisa’s character is that a large part of her true nature has become the contented farm-wife—even if this persona did not always occupy so much of her. Any further pursuit of the unfulfilled romantic side would come at the expense of losing everything else that she values, and so it must remain an unrealized fantasy.

What is the central idea in Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums"?

The central idea in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” concerns a woman’s loneliness and unfulfilling life in her marriage, which she sublimates by gardening and tries to satisfy through her fantasies with the tinker man, only to be brought back to the reality of her loneliness when she discovers that the tinker man had no real feelings for her at all and lacks the sensitivity she seeks in a man and in life.  Steinbeck validates a woman's sexuality in this story while also depicting a woman as facing enormous difficulties in satisfying sexual and other needs through men who lack own depth and sensitivity.