and pleased by her ability to nurture these flowers. Elisa’s pride in her gift to grow such beautiful flowers reinforces the fact that the flowers are a replacement for her children.I addition, the chrysanthemums come to symbolize Elisa’s femininity and sexuality. Elisa feels that Henry does not recognize or appreciate her femininity, and this feeling causes her to be distant towards him. Henry fails to see his shortcomings, but Elisa fails to point them out to him. On observing her prize flowers, all Henry can say is, “I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big” (1083). Henry’s inability to understand Elisa’s needs leaves her vulnerable in her encounter with the tinker. The meeting with the tinker renews Elisa’s feelings of femininity and sexuality as a woman. Her resistance to his mundane matters disappears after the tinker romantically describes the chrysanthemums as a “quick puff of colored smoke” (1085). By admiring the chrysanthemums, he admires her. With a few well-placed words from the tinker, her masculine image has been replaced with a feminine one. As the tinker leaves, she begins to feel hope for herself and her marriage. She sees a “bright direction” (1087) and a new beginning for her marriage. After the tinker leaves, Elisa bathes, scrubbing herself “with a little block of pumice, legs and thighs, loins and chest and arms, until her skin was scratched and red” (1088). She prepares for her night out with her husband. She dresses, stands in front of the mirror, and admires herself, her body, her femininity. She hopes Henry will recognize her needs as a woman and provide her with the romance and excitement for which she waits. However, this hope is quickly dashed. Henry’s best compliment on her appearance after she has changed is “You look strong enough to break a calf over your knee, happy enough to eat it...
