What are the motifs in The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck?

Although there are other ways to describe it, the tension between Elisa and Henry, the reason they cannot communicate with each other or satisfy each other, is that they do not share an aesthetic sense. Elisa needs to experience beautiful things, but Henry values things because they are functional. He appreciates Elisa's "gift with things," her "planter's hands," and he praises her for this gift. But the quality he admires in the chrysanthemums is their size: "Some of those yellow chrysanthemums you had this year were ten inches across." He would place more value on Elisa's gift if she could use it for production, to "work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big."