not understand. … Life is not all couleur de rose , Mees McEndairs ’ ” (206). Georgie
takes her business away, but Mlle. Salambre the next day confronts her, suggesting
that she go out and ask passersby how her father made his money, and adding that
her fi anc é “ ‘ is not fi t to be the husband of a self - respecting bar - maid ’ ” (209). Georgie
investigates and learns of her father ’ s unethical business dealings, while she realizes
that her husband - to - be is equally capable of indiscretions of a sexual nature.
Miss McEnders has had an awakening very different from those of Mildred Orme
and Mrs. Baroda, but an awakening nonetheless – in this case, to the presence of sin
where she least expected to fi nd it and the consequent impossibility of making moral
judgments about others
’
lives. This story illustrates a common characteristic of
Chopin ’ s short fi ction: objective narrative depiction of individual moral choices, with
critical treatment reserved only for those who would judge others. As far as the New
Kate
Chopin
161
Woman is concerned, Chopin ’ s story portrays one version of this fi gure – those who
wished to achieve public infl uence through social reform work – but only to show
how this reform - minded New Woman must “ clean up ” at home fi rst to avoid hypoc-
risy. Moreover, “ Miss McEnders ” dramatizes the gap between middle - class women
who worked to improve society and other women who worked to support themselves,
facing circumstances that the former group might not appreciate.
Chopin ’ s story “ Loka ” (1892) contains a more light - hearted but equally pointed
satire on lady philanthropists. Loka, a half - breed Choctaw girl from an abusive home,
has been fi red from her job at a local saloon, and the Band of United Endeavor meets
to decide her fate. The girl is taken to the meeting and inspected by the Band ’ s con-
descending members: “ The minister ’ s wife reckoned she might be sixteen. The judge ’ s
wife thought that it made no difference. The doctor ’ s wife suggested that the girl
have a bath and change before she be handled, even in discussion ” (212). The ladies
fi nd Loka a post as help in a respectable household where they hope she will learn
responsibility and have “ good moral training beside ” (213). However, rather than the
Band ’ s endeavors, it is the infl uence of the Padues ’ affectionate baby that causes the
Indian girl at the conclusion to withstand the urge to run away to her old ways.
While these two stories suggest the susceptibility of social reform – minded New
Women to hypocrisy or prejudice, much of the fi ction Chopin published throughout
the mid - 1890s tends toward her characteristic objectivity in portraying varieties of
female experience. Several stories continue Chopin ’ s pattern of depicting varied means
of fulfi llment for women without asserting the superiority of any one choice, with
such contrasting possibilities presented by two characters within one story or even
within one character. One example is
“
Lilacs
”
(1894), which concerns Adrienne
Farival, an opera singer and career - oriented New Woman who returns from Paris each
spring to visit the convent school she attended as a girl. The nuns look forward to
her visit, especially one named Sister Agathe. However, this year the Mother Superior
refuses to allow Adrienne to visit, and Sister Agathe weeps as she watches the stunned
woman walk away from the convent. The story implies that Adrienne, a successful
artist, has a licentious lifestyle that perhaps prompts her need to return periodically
to her religious roots; a glimpse of her life in Europe reveals Adrienne discussing a
male admirer with her maid while wearing neglig é e and “ reclining indolently in the
depths of a luxurious armchair ” (361) and calling for liquor and cigarettes when she
invites in her suitor. In this context, she might be seen as one of the bohemian New
Women of the decadent 1890s.
It is this lifestyle that prompts the Mother Superior to bar Adrienne from the
convent, but Chopin ’ s narrator judges neither the life of Adrienne nor that of Sister
Agathe in presenting their incompatibility. Though the routines of convent life did
not interest Chopin, 15 her close childhood friend Kitty Garesch é chose this vocation,
and it has an appeal that speaks to Adrienne, despite her worldly sophistication. 16
Moreover, though Sister Agathe is unhappy at the loss of Adrienne
’
s visits, it is
not necessarily because they have awakened her to pleasures of the secular world;
indeed, what most pleases her during Adrienne ’ s visits is the latter ’ s resumption of
162
Charlotte Rich
convent - school ways. However, Chopin treats critically Sister Agathe ’ s repression of
her feelings at the conclusion of the work, implying that ultimately, both women ’ s
lives lack balance.
This contrast between the spiritual and the sensual in the life choices that women
make is also the focus of a tale from 1895, “ Two Portraits, ” or “ The Nun and the
Wanton, ” which Chopin intended to include in a fi nal story collection, A Vocation
and a Voice , that was accepted but never published by Herbert S. Stone and Company. 17
In this work, Chopin describes two different destinies for a young woman, Alberta,
one worldly and the other religious. Alberta the wanton has a body “ too beautiful to
be beaten – it was made for love ” ; she “ gives her love only when and where she
chooses ” and “ does not know shame or reserve ” (463). On the other hand, Alberta the
nun dedicated her life to religion at “ the age when with other women the languor of
love creeps into the veins and dreams begin ” (464). Though she is the most saintly
woman in the convent, her experiences are described in sensual terms; during medita-
tion she feels an “ oblivious ecstasy ” from which she must be roused. In contrast to
“ Lilacs, ” this story implies that the nun has a happier life than the wanton; while the
sensual Alberta contemplates suicide and carries a knife as “ she is apt to be vixenish ”
(363), the spiritual Alberta is awash in celestial love, fi lled with rapture at visions of
her Savior. However, like “ Lilacs, ” this story suggests that the extremes of the two
women ’ s lives might be mediated to attain happiness.
In a variation on this theme, Chopin ’ s widely anthologized story “ Ath é na ï se ”
(1895) presents alternative possibilities for satisfaction in a woman ’ s life through the
growth of one character. As the story opens, Ath é na ï se has left her husband and
returned to her family, declaring that “ ‘ I can ’ t stan ’ to live with a man … his coats
an ’ pantaloons hanging in my room; his ugly bare feet – washing them in my tub,
befo ’ my very eyes, ugh! ’ ” (431). 18 Cazeau retrieves her, but Ath é na ï se escapes again,
this time to New Orleans. Settling in a boarding house, she seeks employment and
befriends fellow boarder Gouvernail, the journalist who also appears in “ A Respectable
Woman ” and The Awakenin
g
. She becomes dependent on the courteous man for
company, and one evening, when he fi nds her distraught and homesick, he comforts
her in a brotherly manner.
A few days later, Ath é na ï se learns that she is pregnant with Cazeau ’ s child, and
this discovery stimulates a radical change in her, described in sensual terms: “ Her
whole being was steeped in a wave of ecstasy. When she … looked at herself in the
mirror, a face met hers which she seemed to see for the fi rst time, so transfi gured was
it with wonder and rapture ” (451). Moreover, Ath é na ï se ’ s view of Cazeau has dramati-
cally changed: “ She half whispered his name, and the sound of it brought red blotches
into her cheeks. … Her whole passionate nature was aroused as if by a miracle ” (451).
Upon her return home to Cazeau, “ As he clasped her in his arms, he felt the yielding
of her whole body against him. He felt her lips for the fi rst time respond to the passion
of his own
”
(454). Despite this surprisingly erotic description of the couple
’
s
reunion, the essentially orthodox message of the story – that Ath é na ï se, after a brief
attempt at
“
freedom,
”
fi nds profound satisfaction in motherhood, a conventional
Kate
Chopin
163
nineteenth - century ideal of female fulfi llment – is likely what enabled Chopin to
publish this story in the Atlantic Monthly in 1896 and as part of her collection A Night
in Acadie .
As Per Seyersted has suggested, Chopin presents ambiguously this seemingly tra-
ditional means of Ath é na ï se ’ s fi nding happiness. Asserting that her initial “ ‘ sense of
hopelessness, of the futility of rebellion against a social and sacred institution ’ is sup-
ported by the story ’ s symbolism, ” he cites Cazeau ’ s remembrance of capturing an
escaped slave as metaphoric of her fate ( Kate Chopin 113 – 14). However, the story is
also ambiguous in light of the ideals of New Womanhood; the conclusion indicates
that marital happiness is possible, but Ath é na ï se ’ s discovery of it is presented both
conventionally and unconventionally for Chopin ’ s time. Ath é na ï se may indeed antici-
pate satisfaction in the selfl ess role of a mother, but the conclusion suggests that she
will also fi nd happiness through her newly acknowledged sexuality, a part of human
nature that Chopin ’ s work often presents as an essential infl uence on the actions of
individuals.
In contrast, other stories from the middle phase of Chopin ’ s career present a more
pessimistic view of the possibility of marital happiness, particularly when sexual needs
remain unfulfi lled. Again, the narratorial tone varies throughout Chopin ’ s treatments
of this theme; for example, “ The Kiss ” (1894) describes with cynical humor a woman ’ s
desire to wed for money while having a lover for sexual fulfi llment. Nathalie, after
her marriage to a wealthy but unattractive man, expects another suitor to treat her as
seductively as before, but he refuses, pointing out that she cannot have it both ways.
The narrator sardonically comments, “ Well, she had Brantain and his million left. A
person can ’ t have everything in this world, and it was a little unreasonable of her to
expect it ” (381). The ending of the story, however, is sobering; Nathalie will have
luxury, but not marital happiness.
The darker story “ Her Letters ” (1894) describes the consequences when another
woman carries out her adulterous intentions, with the implication that such defi ance
of the marriage bond causes tragedy. In this story, a wife has kept her lover ’ s letters
hidden in her writing - desk. Knowing she is fatally ill, she cannot bring herself to
burn them; instead, she leaves a note stipulating that, if the letters are found, they
be destroyed unread. After her death, her husband fi nds the letters, and though
tempted to read them, he throws them in the river. However, he becomes preoccupied
with their import, and he gradually drives himself insane searching for evidence of
her infi delity. Finally, the man ’ s misery leads him to drown himself in the same river,
his mind fi lled with impressions that anticipate the fi nal scene of The Awakening :
“ Only the river knew. … it told him nothing, but it promised all. He could hear it
promising him with caressing voice, peace and sweet repose. He could hear the sweep,
the song of the water inviting him ” (405). As in Chopin ’ s novel, the water is anthro-
pomorphized into a seductive lover which may provide a sensuous escape from the
husband ’ s unhappy reality.
Such later works by Chopin as “ The Storm ” and The Awakening treat the fact of
adultery more objectively, but what William Dean Howells referred to only as “ guilty
164
Charlotte Rich
love ” is shown in “ Her Letters ” to hurt those that it betrays, as well as those that
commit it. However, Emily Toth notes that Chopin “ pondered moral questions in
her fi ction, ” and that “ what was considered ‘ moral ’ for a woman was often reduced
simply to physical ‘ chastity ’ – a problem in the story ‘ Her Letters ’ ” ( Kate Chopin 252).
This story may treat adultery in a more critical light than does “ The Storm, ” but it
also raises another issue: the cultural deterrents to divorce or separation, particularly
for women, that could lead to adultery. Indeed, Chopin ’ s works often raise questions
of morality, but they do not provide defi nitive answers to them.
Two widely anthologized stories from the middle phase of Chopin ’ s career, “ The
Story of an Hour ” (1894) and “ A Pair of Silk Stockings ” (1897), also portray women
who acknowledge needs of the self, though these are not erotic needs. However, in
doing so, these women defy the cultural expectation of selfl essness for Victorian wom-
anhood, and both of their stories end pessimistically. “ The Story of an Hour ” depicts
Louise Mallard ’ s recognition of her desire for freedom after learning that her husband
has died in a train wreck. She is so delighted at the prospect of “ spring days, summer
days, and all sorts of days that would be her own ” (354) that when Mr. Mallard arrives
home alive, she dies of shock. That shock is more likely at the sudden loss of this
opportunity for freedom than at the sudden appearance of her husband. Chopin ’ s nar-
rative stance illuminates the theme of this story, with a famously ambiguous fi nal
comment: “ When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy
that kills ” (354). While the narrator may echo in earnest the doctors ’ words to suggest
that a woman would be so happy at her husband ’ s return that she would die of shock,
thus complying with Victorian views of women as defi ned by their relation to husband
or family, the narrator more likely ironically implies that the woman ’ s joy sprang
from her newfound freedom, and that what killed her was the destruction of that joy
through her husband ’ s reappearance.
On the other hand, in “ A Pair of Silk Stockings, ” a young widow, Mrs. Sommers,
needs, purchasing silk stockings, new shoes, gloves, magazines, a restaurant lunch,
and theatre tickets. As she rides home after her one day of indulgence, the woman ’ s
pale face reveals the futile longing “ that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but
go on and on with her forever ” (504). Neither Mrs. Sommers nor Mrs. Mallard pos-
sesses stereotypical characteristics of the New Woman; they do not smoke cigarettes,
ride bicycles, or have “ advanced ideas. ” However, their inner confl icts resemble those
that many real and fi ctional New Women encountered; they must mediate the gap
between cultural expectations of selfl ess absorption in husband and children and the
fulfi llment of their own desires.
Continuing to refl ect this theme, Chopin ’ s stories from the late 1890s introduce a
triad of women who defy social rules of varying gravity. The consequences of these
transgressions also vary, underscoring the lack of moral agenda in Chopin ’ s treatment
of controversial topics. In “ An Egyptian Cigarette ” (1897), the narrator ’ s rebellion is
merely her smoking, an “ unladylike ” habit Chopin herself enjoyed and refused to give
up in response to censorious readers. 19 The protagonist, while attending a meeting of
Kate
Chopin
165
a women ’ s club, receives some cigarettes from a male friend who has visited Cairo.
The box is covered with “ glazed, yellow paper ” (570), associating the cigarettes with
the decadence of yellow - backed novels and the fi n - de - si è cle publication The Yellow
Book , to which Chopin subscribed. She goes into her friend ’ s smoking - room to sample
a cigarette, glad to escape the “ incessant chatter ” of her female peers (571). The
woman ’ s preference for smoking in a masculine space over the club meeting suggests
her unconventionality, and her attitude corresponds to Chopin ’ s experience as a brief
member of Charlotte Eliot ’ s prestigious Wednesday Club in St. Louis. 20
Inhaling the smoke, the speaker begins to hallucinate that she is in a desert, having
collapsed with exhaustion and despair after following a neglectful lover. She drags
herself to a river, and as she sinks beneath the water her senses are fi lled with rich
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 36