The most discussed theme in "The Chrysanthemums" is limitations—the limitations under which a married woman lives. The idea of limitation or confinement is presented as the story opens: "The high gray-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot." Within this closed pot, Elisa operates within even narrower confines. The house she shares with Henry is enclosed "with red geraniums close-banked around it as high as the windows," and the garden where she grows her flowers is surrounded by a wire fence. From these enclosures Elisa watches men come and go, the cattle buyers in their Ford coupe, Henry and the.....
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