A Women’s
World
What do Kate Chopin's short stories say about the lives of women in the late 1800s?
Analyze the short stories of Kate Chopin as early examples of feminist writing.
Lesson Objectives
Support ideas about a story's theme with textual evidence.
Identify and analyze a short story's themes.
Identify examples of dramatic irony.
Equal Suffrage
What did women's rights activists try to accomplish in the early 1900s?
During the first 80 years of America's history, the only citizens who were allowed to participate in national elections and other political decisions were white men who were wealthy enough to own property. White men who did not own property won the right to vote during and soon after the Civil War, and African American men were granted suffrage in 1868 with the passage of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. However, it wasn't until Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment in 1920 that American women were permitted to vote. At that time, there were many other things that female Americans were not allowed to do either. *Watch video in textbook
Why might Naturalism appeal to authors who wanted to improve the lives of American women?
An Independent Woman
What turn-of-the-century writer addressed the limits of women's lives most directly?
Kate O'Flaherty Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1850. When Kate was five, her father was killed in a train accident, prompting Kate and her mother to move in with Kate's grandmother and great-grandmother. All three of Chopin's caretakers were independent, intelligent, strong widow women, and their positive influence showed up later in Chopin's writings.
Kate married Oscar Chopin in 1870, and they moved to New Orleans. By all accounts, Oscar adored his wife: He admired her independent spirit and allowed her many unheard-of freedoms in marriage. After Oscar's death in 1882, Chopin moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother, who died the next year. To support herself and her seven children, Chopin turned to writing stories.
Kate Chopin wrote over 100 short stories, many of them about the Creole and Cajun people she had known in the South. Her most well known short stories include "Désirée's Baby," "Madame Celestin's Divorce," and "The Storm," as well as the two stories you will read in this lesson—"The Story of an Hour" and "A Pair of Silk Stockings." In addition to short stories, Chopin also wrote two novels. The first, At Fault, went mostly unnoticed, but Chopin's second novel, The Awakening (1899), generated much criticism for its subject matter (a woman with two lovers). Nearly 50 years after Chopin's death in 1904, The Awakening was rediscovered by critics and scholars, who promoted it as a true American classic.
Grow Your Vocabulary
Kate Chopin is known as one of the country's first feminist writers. She explored in very realistic ways how the women of her time struggled, and often failed, to achieve the rights and freedoms easily available to men. Often in Chopin's stories, a character manages to free herself, briefly, from some aspect of oppression and to enjoy a taste of freedom. Chopin used expressive and sophisticated language to express her characters' joy and delight as well as their despair and regret—and the transition from one emotional state to another.
elixir
importunities
repression
retrospection
comparatively
judicious
profusion
laborious
fastidious
Every Word Counts
How could a single parent raising seven children make so much happen in a story?
Free At Last
What message does Chopin construct in "The Story of an Hour"?
In her stories, Chopin tended to focus on female characters trapped in oppressive situations. Of course, she did not need to look far to find and observe models for these characters. Born into a political and economic system that guaranteed them almost no rights, women of Chopin's day were also expected to conform to society's narrow expectations of how a woman should feel, act, and react. As you read the rest of "The Story of an Hour," look for clues that suggest how Mrs. Mallard is expected to respond to her husband's death. Then notice how the author challenges that expectation.
Read the rest of "The Story of an Hour" below and use the questions beside the story to analyze its message.
The Story of An Hour
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.
The Story of An Hour
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The Story of An Hour
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The Story of An Hour
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The Story of An Hour
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The Story of An Hour
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Family First
What other sacrifices do women make, according to Chopin?
Love & Longing
After her husband died, Chopin struggled to support her large family. She must have felt overwhelmed at times, both by the emotional needs of her children and by the financial burden that fell squarely on her shoulders. In fact, Chopin may have identified very closely with her character Mrs. Sommers. Read the rest of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" to find out how Mrs. Sommers spends her 15 dollars.
What ideas about motherhood does Kate Chopin express in this story?
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years.
The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly. For a day or two she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but really absorbed in speculation and calculation. She did not wish to act hastily, to do anything she might afterward regret. But it was during the still hours of the night when she lay awake revolving plans in her mind that she seemed to see her way clearly toward a proper and judicious use of the money.
A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie's shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time longer than they usually did. She would buy so and so many yards of percale for new shirt waists for the boys and Janie and Mag. She had intended to make the old ones do by skillful patching. Mag should have another gown. She had seen some beautiful patterns, veritable bargains in the shop windows. And still there would be left enough for new stockings — two pairs apiece — and what darning that would save for a while! She would get caps for the boys and sailor-hats for the girls. The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation. The neighbors sometimes talked of certain "better days" that little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She had no time — no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily to-morrow never comes.
Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who could stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired object that was selling below cost. She could elbow her way if need be; she had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and stick to it with persistence and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter when it came.
But that day she was a little faint and tired. She had swallowed a light luncheon — no! when she came to think of it, between getting the children fed and the place righted, and preparing herself for the shopping bout, she had actually forgotten to eat any luncheon at all!
She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging breastworks of shirting and figured lawn. An all-gone limp feeling had come over her and she rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter. She wore no gloves. By degrees she grew aware that her hand had encountered something very soothing, very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings. A placard nearby announced that they had been reduced in price from two dollars and fifty cents to one dollar and ninety-eight cents; and a young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine their line of silk hosiery. She smiled, just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds with the ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things — with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers. Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks. She looked up at the girl.
"Do you think there are any eights-and-a-half among these?"
There were any number of eights-and-a-half. In fact, there were more of that size than any other. Here was a light-blue pair; there were some lavender, some all black and various shades of tan and gray. Mrs. Sommers selected a black pair and looked at them very long and closely. She pretended to be examining their texture, which the clerk assured her was excellent.
"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she mused aloud. "Well, I'll take this pair." She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and waited for her change and for her parcel. What a very small parcel it was! It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping-bag.
Mrs. Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the bargain counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies' waiting-rooms. Here, in a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton stockings for the new silk ones which she had just bought. She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility. How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of it. She did for a little while. Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them into her bag. After doing this she crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to be fitted. She was fastidious. The clerk could not make her out; he could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not too easily pleased. She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots. Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize
that they belonged to her and were a part of herself. She wanted an excellent and stylish fit, she told the young fellow who served her, and she did not mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got what she desired.
It was a long time since Mrs. Sommers had been fitted with gloves. On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.
Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed "kid" over Mrs. Sommers's hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand. But there were other places where money might be spent. There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street. Mrs. Sommers bought two high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She carried them without wrapping. As well as she could she lifted her skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well-fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearing — had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude. She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought. There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught
glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion.
When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite — a half dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet — a crême-frappée, for instance; a glass of Rhine wine, and after all a small cup of black coffee. While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray, whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood. There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented itself in the shape of a matinée poster.
It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their gaudy attire. There were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole — stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it. She laughed at the comedy and wept — she and the gaudy woman next
to her wept over the tragedy. And they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs. Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
Analyzing Themes
What sort of thinking is involved in analyzing a story's theme?
Note that stories, and especially longer works of fiction such as novels, often have more than one theme. Another theme in "The Story of an Hour" is that disappointment can be devastating. The best textual evidence for this theme can be found in the last sentence of the story.
Click the Activity button to access a worksheet that you will use to track and record themes in "A Pair of Silk Stockings." Be sure to include textual evidence from the story to support your ideas about theme. When you have completed this worksheet, submit it to your teacher.
Assess Yourself
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Take the Quiz titled "A Women's World"
What can readers infer about Mrs. Mallard's personality and reputation from the first two paragraphs? Based on what you've read about Chopin so far, what prediction might you make about Mrs. Mallard's immediate future?
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
The neighbors sometimes talked of certain "better days" that little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She had no time — no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily to-morrow never comes.
In what way is the main character in this story, Mrs. Sommers, like Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour"?
Chopin wrote this next story in April of 1896, and it was published in 1897. Like Mrs. Mallard's story, "A Pair of Silk Stockings" explores the struggle of a woman trying to balance society's expectations of women—in this case, mothers—with her own personal desires. As you read the first part of the story, look for similarities and differences between Mrs. Sommers and Mrs. Mallard.
Although Kate Chopin seemed to have a happy marriage, her stories tended to emphasize the repression and oppression experienced by women of her time. Why might she have chosen the subject matter she did?
According to those who knew her best, Kate Chopin wrote her stories quickly and made very few revisions. Because she had such a large family and she was their primary caregiver, Chopin's time for writing was very limited. Perhaps because of these restrictions, Chopin's writing style is clear, concise, and always headed towards an important conclusion. Read the first two paragraphs of "The Story of an Hour" below, and see if you can guess where the story is going.
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Transcript
A Women’s
World
What do Kate Chopin's short stories say about the lives of women in the late 1800s?
Analyze the short stories of Kate Chopin as early examples of feminist writing.
Lesson Objectives
Support ideas about a story's theme with textual evidence.
Identify and analyze a short story's themes. Identify examples of dramatic irony.
Equal Suffrage
What did women's rights activists try to accomplish in the early 1900s?
During the first 80 years of America's history, the only citizens who were allowed to participate in national elections and other political decisions were white men who were wealthy enough to own property. White men who did not own property won the right to vote during and soon after the Civil War, and African American men were granted suffrage in 1868 with the passage of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. However, it wasn't until Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment in 1920 that American women were permitted to vote. At that time, there were many other things that female Americans were not allowed to do either. *Watch video in textbook
Why might Naturalism appeal to authors who wanted to improve the lives of American women?
An Independent Woman
What turn-of-the-century writer addressed the limits of women's lives most directly?
Kate O'Flaherty Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1850. When Kate was five, her father was killed in a train accident, prompting Kate and her mother to move in with Kate's grandmother and great-grandmother. All three of Chopin's caretakers were independent, intelligent, strong widow women, and their positive influence showed up later in Chopin's writings. Kate married Oscar Chopin in 1870, and they moved to New Orleans. By all accounts, Oscar adored his wife: He admired her independent spirit and allowed her many unheard-of freedoms in marriage. After Oscar's death in 1882, Chopin moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother, who died the next year. To support herself and her seven children, Chopin turned to writing stories. Kate Chopin wrote over 100 short stories, many of them about the Creole and Cajun people she had known in the South. Her most well known short stories include "Désirée's Baby," "Madame Celestin's Divorce," and "The Storm," as well as the two stories you will read in this lesson—"The Story of an Hour" and "A Pair of Silk Stockings." In addition to short stories, Chopin also wrote two novels. The first, At Fault, went mostly unnoticed, but Chopin's second novel, The Awakening (1899), generated much criticism for its subject matter (a woman with two lovers). Nearly 50 years after Chopin's death in 1904, The Awakening was rediscovered by critics and scholars, who promoted it as a true American classic.
Grow Your Vocabulary
Kate Chopin is known as one of the country's first feminist writers. She explored in very realistic ways how the women of her time struggled, and often failed, to achieve the rights and freedoms easily available to men. Often in Chopin's stories, a character manages to free herself, briefly, from some aspect of oppression and to enjoy a taste of freedom. Chopin used expressive and sophisticated language to express her characters' joy and delight as well as their despair and regret—and the transition from one emotional state to another.
elixir
importunities
repression
retrospection
comparatively
judicious
profusion
laborious
fastidious
Every Word Counts
How could a single parent raising seven children make so much happen in a story?
Free At Last
What message does Chopin construct in "The Story of an Hour"?
In her stories, Chopin tended to focus on female characters trapped in oppressive situations. Of course, she did not need to look far to find and observe models for these characters. Born into a political and economic system that guaranteed them almost no rights, women of Chopin's day were also expected to conform to society's narrow expectations of how a woman should feel, act, and react. As you read the rest of "The Story of an Hour," look for clues that suggest how Mrs. Mallard is expected to respond to her husband's death. Then notice how the author challenges that expectation. Read the rest of "The Story of an Hour" below and use the questions beside the story to analyze its message.
The Story of An Hour
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! "Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door." "Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.
The Story of An Hour
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The Story of An Hour
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The Story of An Hour
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Family First
What other sacrifices do women make, according to Chopin?
Love & Longing
After her husband died, Chopin struggled to support her large family. She must have felt overwhelmed at times, both by the emotional needs of her children and by the financial burden that fell squarely on her shoulders. In fact, Chopin may have identified very closely with her character Mrs. Sommers. Read the rest of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" to find out how Mrs. Sommers spends her 15 dollars.
What ideas about motherhood does Kate Chopin express in this story?
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years. The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly. For a day or two she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but really absorbed in speculation and calculation. She did not wish to act hastily, to do anything she might afterward regret. But it was during the still hours of the night when she lay awake revolving plans in her mind that she seemed to see her way clearly toward a proper and judicious use of the money. A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie's shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time longer than they usually did. She would buy so and so many yards of percale for new shirt waists for the boys and Janie and Mag. She had intended to make the old ones do by skillful patching. Mag should have another gown. She had seen some beautiful patterns, veritable bargains in the shop windows. And still there would be left enough for new stockings — two pairs apiece — and what darning that would save for a while! She would get caps for the boys and sailor-hats for the girls. The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation. The neighbors sometimes talked of certain "better days" that little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She had no time — no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily to-morrow never comes.
Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who could stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired object that was selling below cost. She could elbow her way if need be; she had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and stick to it with persistence and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter when it came. But that day she was a little faint and tired. She had swallowed a light luncheon — no! when she came to think of it, between getting the children fed and the place righted, and preparing herself for the shopping bout, she had actually forgotten to eat any luncheon at all! She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging breastworks of shirting and figured lawn. An all-gone limp feeling had come over her and she rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter. She wore no gloves. By degrees she grew aware that her hand had encountered something very soothing, very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings. A placard nearby announced that they had been reduced in price from two dollars and fifty cents to one dollar and ninety-eight cents; and a young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine their line of silk hosiery. She smiled, just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds with the ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things — with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers. Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks. She looked up at the girl. "Do you think there are any eights-and-a-half among these?"
There were any number of eights-and-a-half. In fact, there were more of that size than any other. Here was a light-blue pair; there were some lavender, some all black and various shades of tan and gray. Mrs. Sommers selected a black pair and looked at them very long and closely. She pretended to be examining their texture, which the clerk assured her was excellent. "A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she mused aloud. "Well, I'll take this pair." She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and waited for her change and for her parcel. What a very small parcel it was! It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping-bag. Mrs. Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the bargain counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies' waiting-rooms. Here, in a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton stockings for the new silk ones which she had just bought. She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility. How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of it. She did for a little while. Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them into her bag. After doing this she crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to be fitted. She was fastidious. The clerk could not make her out; he could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not too easily pleased. She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots. Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize
that they belonged to her and were a part of herself. She wanted an excellent and stylish fit, she told the young fellow who served her, and she did not mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got what she desired. It was a long time since Mrs. Sommers had been fitted with gloves. On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand. Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed "kid" over Mrs. Sommers's hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand. But there were other places where money might be spent. There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street. Mrs. Sommers bought two high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She carried them without wrapping. As well as she could she lifted her skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well-fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearing — had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude. She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought. There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught
glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion. When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite — a half dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet — a crême-frappée, for instance; a glass of Rhine wine, and after all a small cup of black coffee. While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray, whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood. There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented itself in the shape of a matinée poster. It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their gaudy attire. There were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole — stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it. She laughed at the comedy and wept — she and the gaudy woman next
to her wept over the tragedy. And they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs. Sommers her box of candy. The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car. A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
Analyzing Themes
What sort of thinking is involved in analyzing a story's theme?
Note that stories, and especially longer works of fiction such as novels, often have more than one theme. Another theme in "The Story of an Hour" is that disappointment can be devastating. The best textual evidence for this theme can be found in the last sentence of the story. Click the Activity button to access a worksheet that you will use to track and record themes in "A Pair of Silk Stockings." Be sure to include textual evidence from the story to support your ideas about theme. When you have completed this worksheet, submit it to your teacher.
Assess Yourself
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Assess Yourself
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Assess Yourself
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Assess Yourself
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Assess Yourself
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Take the Quiz titled "A Women's World"
What can readers infer about Mrs. Mallard's personality and reputation from the first two paragraphs? Based on what you've read about Chopin so far, what prediction might you make about Mrs. Mallard's immediate future?
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
The neighbors sometimes talked of certain "better days" that little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She had no time — no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily to-morrow never comes.
In what way is the main character in this story, Mrs. Sommers, like Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour"?
Chopin wrote this next story in April of 1896, and it was published in 1897. Like Mrs. Mallard's story, "A Pair of Silk Stockings" explores the struggle of a woman trying to balance society's expectations of women—in this case, mothers—with her own personal desires. As you read the first part of the story, look for similarities and differences between Mrs. Sommers and Mrs. Mallard.
Although Kate Chopin seemed to have a happy marriage, her stories tended to emphasize the repression and oppression experienced by women of her time. Why might she have chosen the subject matter she did?
According to those who knew her best, Kate Chopin wrote her stories quickly and made very few revisions. Because she had such a large family and she was their primary caregiver, Chopin's time for writing was very limited. Perhaps because of these restrictions, Chopin's writing style is clear, concise, and always headed towards an important conclusion. Read the first two paragraphs of "The Story of an Hour" below, and see if you can guess where the story is going.