“The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck is a story about a woman, named Elisa, who is very strong and finds much joy gardening. The story starts out with a setting of a farm. Elisa’s husband notices how well she does with her garden and he suggests that she came and do something with the apple trees in the orchard. Then after a few moments she hears a racket coming and she can see off in the distance a wagon coming down her road. The man in the wagon tried and tried to get Elisa to let him fix something of hers. She claimed that everything was in good working order. So the man then changes the subject and notices that she is chopping the chrysanthemums. He starts talking about a woman he knows that has so much trouble with hers. Elisa then makes a kind gesture and puts some in a pot for the man to give to the woman. The man then heads off. Later on Elisa and her husband go to town for supper and Elisa notices the man who took the pot and the chrysanthemums. She sees that he had dumped the chrysanthemums out and kept the pot. It turns out that he just wanted the pot so he could make money off it.

I really didn’t like this story because I thought it seemed a little off throughout. It seemed that the author talked about the setting too much and the end wasn’t really a big surprise ending. I think the point of this story is that you cannot trust everyone. Obviously Elisa was trying to do a kind favor but the man just threw her chrysanthemums out like they were nothing. She worked hard on them though which upset her to just see them thrown out like that. That’s why she said she didn’t feel strong at the end because she let someone take advantage of her.