Steinbeck's Chrysantheums

I thought I had a good sense of Steinbeck from Sweet Thursday & Travels with Charley but I've have more to learn. My sports blogging buddies introduced me to this short story The Chrysantheums The first paragraph was an elegant, poetic description of Salinas valley. Every word needs to be read in this story of Elisa, a farmer's wife with planter's hands which she put to good use in her chrysanthemum garden.

There was definitely sexual tension in the air as Elisa explained her planting methods to a tinker who was feigning interest in order to get some work repairing pots. This scene:

Kneeling there, her hand went out toward his legs in the greasy black trousers. Her hesitant fingers almost touched the cloth. Then her hand dropped to the ground. She crouched low like a fawning dog.

had me wondering if sex was next.

It wasn't,  but she was definitely aroused by the tinker's interest in her plants and his free lifestyle on the road. I've read a couple of reviews which try to play Freud with the short story, but I'm not ready to acknowledge this as a plea for feminism.

I think she was lonely and isloated at times and perhaps bored  but not totally unhappy with her husband.

At the end of the story, she starts mentioning the possibility of attending the fights, which she rejected earlier, instead of going to the movies. It took me back to her early description of the tinker:

His eyes were dark, and they were full of the brooding that gets in the eyes of teamsters and of sailors.

Maybe she wanted her husband  Henry to be more virile or just wanted more interaction with virile men or something as basic as more excitement in her/ their lives.

Please jump in with thoughts because this well written short story gave me plenty to chew on. Maybe a few things I missed or ignored.

6/26/13

 Thinking about  Steinbeck's Travels with Charley & Sweet Thursday.  He wrote some exquisite descriptions of American characters

12/05/13

Steinbeck from The Winter of our Discontent: 

No one wants advice, only corroboration.

6/10/14

from Travels with Charley

“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.” 

8/21/14

 There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension. (East of Eden, 1952)

12/24/14

So much cop bashing  in certain circles, I extracted a quote from a Steinbeck letter to Adlai Stevenson in 1959. A bit preachy but worth reading

 When I left Bruton, I checked out with Officer 'Arris, the lone policeman who kept the peace in five villages, unarmed and on a bicycle.

6/9/15

Like this Steinbeck quote from  a Paris Review interview. link

For a while I was a vicious fighter but it wasn't to win. It was to get it over and get the hell out of there.

7/4/16

Only fair to quote Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat, on July 4th:
 "A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol"  Stevenson to the The New York Times Magazine (7 February 1965)

7/6/17

Here's one to ponder: “If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.” 

#JohnSteinbeck

7/5/20

Just something to ponder : “Tell 'em to God. Don' go burdenin' other people with your sins. That ain't decent.”  #JohnSteinbeck , The Grapes of Wrath

4/5/22

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum."

Adlai Stevenson(1900-1965), Democrat who lost to Ike twice in  bids to be our President.

10/30/22

The Strand Magazine reprinted a column this week that Steinbeck wrote for Le Figaro in 1954 when he lived in Paris. He mentioned that McCarthyism "cannot be wiped out because, by destroying it, democracy would destroy itself.” Basically, let the system sort it out, which the USA senate did during the mid 1950s.