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In ?The Chrysanthemums?, John Steinbeck brings a microscope into a landscape portrait. Elisa Allen is content with her life. Her husband, Henry, a farmer and rancher, has provided for her well. She has time to tend and nurture a flower garden. All is calm until a passing salesman fans a burning ember within her. His interest in her chrysanthemums, and vicariously, her, empowers her and eventually betrays her. Elisa Allen lives a sheltered life. Her world rarely escapes ?the wire fence that protected her flower garden from cattle and dogs and chickens.? (p.247) She also uses her gardening clothes as a shield from the world. Her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume, a man?s black hat pulled down low over her eyes, clod-hopper shoes, a figured print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron with four big pockets to hold the snips, the trowel, and scratcher, the seeds and the knife she worked with. She wore heavy leather gloves to protect her hands while she worked. (p.246) While she is gardening her world is enclosed by the fence. And she is comfortable there. She knows all that needs to be done and on what schedule. Her flowers are free of pests and she grows the largest blooms in the area. Yet when her world is slightly disrupted by Henry?s presence, she is startled. And Elisa is further disturbed when he happens to complement her on the work that she does, and offers that she could possibly do the same with his apples, ?Maybe I could do it, too. I?ve a gift with things all right. My mother had it. She could stick anything in the ground and make it grow. She said it was having planters? hands that knew how to do it.? (p.247) She is not sure if he is sincere with his compliments and does not know how to react. Instead of thanking him, she takes his words as a challenge, and realizing the harshness of her words, she changes the subject. Henry invites Elisa out on the town to celebrate a good sale of cattle, and Elisa accepts.
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