We see this reality as crude and unfair but, nevertheless, true.
In "The Chrysanthemums," we find Elisa in a situation that is similar to those in Cannery Row. Elisa is able to escape her situation through her gardening techniques but even that is shattered when she encounters the stranger. Elisa's story is different from those in Cannery Row in that she sees the gravity of it. After the stranger destroys her flowers, she understands her station in life and becomes quite sad about it. We can assume from this point-of-view that ignorance truly is bliss.
Elisa has great needs in her life, which are not meet through her husband. She is more than likely not going to have children.
Because she has no children of her own, she cultivates her flowers with extreme care. Her flowerbed has "no aphids, no sow bugs or snails or cutworms were there, no sow bugs or snails or cutworms. Her terrier fingers destroyed such pests before they could get started" (Steinbeck Chrysanthemums 1327). Elisa's simple life and attraction is destroyed when the tinker destroys her flowers. On the surface, it seems silly, but when we look at what really happened, we see that Elisa takes the destruction of her flowers personally because they are like her children. Furthermore, he did not even try to hide the fact that he did not want them. This scene wakes Elisa up to the painful reality of her lot in life. When she sees the flowers in a clod of dirt on the road she realizes that she is what she will always be - someone's wife. While she may want more for herself, she becomes painfully aware that this will likely never happen. She realizes that she is living in a male dominated world...
Our last scene is of Elisa "crying weakly -- like an old woman" (1334). This final scene is much like the final scene in Cannery row in that we are faced with the possibility of Eliza never realizing her own worth.
Steinbeck captures a certain truth in Cannery Row and "The Chrysanthemums" that is difficult to accept. While we want to believe that we all have the chance to lift ourselves up and out of desperate situations, we know not all can. These stories force us to look at the reality that life is not always fair and social status sometimes hinders people from becoming all that they can be. In Cannery Row, we see the lives of Doc and the boys as lives that are caught within a time warp. These people have no real shot of a life outside the ones they have created along the pier. Similarly, Elisa realizes that her social status as a wife is all she will ever accomplish. She may have hope and dreams but they begin and end with her being a woman. Both of these stories focus on the theme of social status and how that can hinder an individual's place in life. While he never says it outright, Steinbeck is hinting to the fact that we are often victims of circumstance. The setting is extremely important in these stories just for that fact alone. Some things, regardless of how they try, will always be held back because of where they are and their inability to escape.
Works Cited
Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row. New York: Penguin Books. 1986.
The Chrysanthemums." The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Cassill, R.V., ed. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1981. 1326-35.
