Women’s independence, marriage, money, and racial prejudice in Louisiana.
Kate Chopin (1850–1904) was an American novelist and short story writer. Born in St. Louis, she lived in New Orleans and rural Louisiana during her marriage before returning to St. Louis after her husband's death. She published much of her fiction in magazines during the 1890s. Her story collections include Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her novel The Awakening (1899) drew hostile reviews for its treatment of a married woman's desire for independence.
Her stories examine marriage, money, racial prejudice, and women's freedom to make choices. “A Pair of Silk Stockings” follows a mother deciding how to spend an unexpected sum of money. “Désirée’s Baby” concerns a Louisiana family whose relationships are shaped by slavery and assumptions about ancestry. Chopin often contrasts what a woman feels privately with what her family or community expects of her, using everyday encounters and brief conversations to make those pressures clear.
From a quick encounter to a longer story.
After hearing that her husband has died, a woman discovers an unexpected feeling while she sits alone.
A young mother at a Louisiana plantation sees her husband's love vanish as rumors spread about their baby.
A woman is surprised by her attraction to the friend her husband has invited to stay.
A child is blamed when a treasured porcelain figure vanishes from a plantation home.
An artist wants to sketch a Cajun fisherman, but the man's daughter worries how strangers will portray him.
With her husband away at war, a lonely young wife grows close to a visiting neighbor.
A woman estranged from her son takes in a sick child after a family party.
A farmer goes to a country ball to escape indecision about marriage and meets a woman with plans of her own.
A New Orleans agent visits a Louisiana plantation and grows close to a woman already engaged to a local painter.
With her brother sick and her father avoiding work, Lolotte takes a cotton delivery into her own hands.
A shopkeeper develops feelings for a married locksmith and struggles with what her priest calls sin.
With Christmas near, a plantation household searches in the rain for three missing turkeys.
Fifine takes her father's old fiddle to a plantation party, hoping it can help feed her family.
Hearing that his former love is struggling, Doudouce travels to see her and her family.
A boy shelters an injured wanderer while his Louisiana family faces losing the money for his schooling.
On Easter morning, three children take flowers from a recluse's hill, drawing him back toward the village.
A fisherman becomes fixated on a visitor he hears playing the church organ.
At a Cajun ball, a farmer watches the woman he loves draw the attention of a wealthy planter.
A new wife leaves her husband to find a life she can choose for herself.
A plantation store clerk grows attached to a young woman whose family depends on the planter's credit.
A woman who has feared crossing the bayou since childhood must help a boy hurt on her side of it.
After saving for months, two twelve-year-old twins walk into town to buy their first shoes.
A stopped train brings strangers to Caline's rural home, leaving her curious about the world beyond it.
A shopkeeper spends his earnings on his sister's hopes of becoming an opera singer.
A young man is pushed out of the only home he has known after his guardian dies.
A teenage mail carrier stops at a dance and finds that his horse and mailbag have vanished.
A traveler finds an old acquaintance trapped in an abusive marriage in a remote Louisiana cabin.
A planter's challenge to a segregated school sends its teacher to New Orleans, where their conflict follows her.
A town speculates about whom an awkward young woman will marry.
An enslaved young woman refuses the marriage her mistress has chosen and falls in love with another man.
Sent to work for a Louisiana family, a young Indigenous woman longs for the woods but grows attached to their baby.
At Easter, a carpenter notices a poor young woman whom the village has overlooked.
A lawyer urges a woman to divorce her absent husband and grows invested in her decision.
A wet and hungry prankster turns up at a lonely doctor's door during a storm.
Pélagie saves for decades to rebuild the plantation house lost in the war, while her sister lives beside its ruins.
A poor market worker supports an older woman from the family he once served.
On her way to Mass, a girl stays with an elderly neighbor whom no one else can tend.
After emancipation, Aunt Peggy asks for a quiet cabin where she can spend her final days.
A plantation worker sets out for a week of visiting and stops at a sick boy's cabin.
A young man pretends to be ill, leaving his godmother to handle work meant for him.
A woman who has never wanted children must care for a neighbor's four youngsters.
Babette may visit her cousins when the figs ripen, and she watches the trees each day.
An older woman refuses to leave the house she was given when freed from slavery.
An elderly freed man keeps trying to reach the family that enslaved him decades earlier.
A little girl offers lilies to a furious neighbor after her calf damages his crops.
When her French village empties under British rule, a young hunter must decide where she belongs.
A solitary narrator turns from people to the quiet of a summer night.
A traveler with a broken buggy is mistaken for a soldier who never came home for Christmas.
On a bitter Christmas Eve, an out-of-work watchmaker hears a violin through the wall just as he loses hope.
