| "A Pair of Silk Stockings" | |
|---|---|
| by Kate Chopin | |
 | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short story |
| Published in | Vogue |
| Publication type | Magazine |
| Publication date | September 1897 |
"A Pair of Silk Stockings" is an 1897 short story written by Kate Chopin. The story follows Mrs. Sommers who prefers spending a windfall on herself, rather than on her children.
Mrs. Sommers comes into the small fortune of $15. After a few days of reflection, she decides to use the money to purchase clothing for her children so they may look "fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives." That narrative suggests that Mrs. Sommers had been before her marriage a wealthy woman, but now "needs of the present absorbed her every faculty."
An exhausted Mrs. Sommers rests at a counter where she will begin her shopping adventure. There she finds a pair of silk stockings for sale and is entranced by their smoothness. "Not thinking at all," she disregards her plans to obtain clothes for her children and instead spends her money and her afternoon for herself. She purchases boots to go with her stockings, buys fitted kid gloves, reads expensive magazines while lunching at a high-class restaurant, and ends her day sharing chocolates with a fellow theatre goer.
After the play ends, she boards the cable car to return home with "a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever."
The story was first published in Vogue. Chopin chose to write for Vogue because the magazine was uncharacteristically "fearless and truthful" for the 1890s in its depiction of women and their lives. [1] Scholar Emily Toth observes that many of Chopin's boldest stories were published in Vogue, including "The Story of an Hour". Vogue published these stories so earnestly that, Toth suggests, it gave Chopin the decidedly false impression that American reviewers would be accepting of her coming scandalous The Awakening. [1]
Allen Stein argues that serpentine silk stockings represent the empty consumerism that Mrs. Sommers uses to try to escape her life. [2] Chopin critic and biographer Barbara Ewell concurs, and calls the story "a small masterpiece." She posits that "the power of money to enhance self-esteem and confidence is the core" of the narrative. [3] Describing Mrs. Sommers as "little", Chopin refers to more than her physical stature. The neighbors are all aware of what Mrs. Sommers' social standing had been before her marriage, and see how her marriage has reduced her. On the day of her shopping trip, Mrs. Sommers' physical exhaustion also mirrors the weakening of her self resolve. Until she finds the stockings, Mrs. Sommers has been able to maintain her selflessness. But the temptation proves too much and she succumbs to the "mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility"—words which prefigure Edna Pontellier in Chopin's later novel The Awakening. Mrs. Sommers' sojourn into a materialistic world brings her confidence, but her experience, just like the matinee she finds there, is ultimately transient. Mrs. Sommers' brief moment of happiness, Ewell suggests, must end as it does for many of Chopin's characters. [3]
Kate Chopin was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald, and she is one of the more frequently read and recognized writers of Louisiana Creole heritage. She is best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening.
The Awakening is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earlier American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics.
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"The Story of an Hour" is a short story written by Kate Chopin on April 19, 1894. It was originally published in Vogue on December 6, 1894, as "The Dream of an Hour". It was later reprinted in St. Louis Life on January 5, 1895, as "The Story of an Hour".
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The Year My Parents Ruined My Life is a 1997 novel written by Martha Freeman.
Emily Toth, a Robert Penn Warren Professor of English and Women's Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, is a scholar, novelist, advice columnist, and feminist activist. She earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins University. Toth's scholarly work includes over 300 articles and papers about academic mentoring, Louisiana literature and culture, women's humor, and music; biographies of the American women writers Kate Chopin and Grace Metalious; a cultural history of menstruation; edited collections of Chopin's papers and last short story collection, and a volume of essays about regionalism in women's writing. Toth's historical novel Daughters of New Orleans (1983) was named a "Best Feminist Historical Novel" by Romantic Times in 1984. Toth was also the founder and editor of the journal Regionalism and the Female Imagination from 1975-1979 and on the editorial board of the journal Southern Studies.
An Embarrassing Position is a short play written in 1895 by American author Kate Chopin which has been adapted as comic opera in 2010 by American composer Dan Shore.
A Pair of Silk Stockings is a 1918 American silent marital comedy film starring Constance Talmadge and Harrison Ford. It was directed by Walter Edwards and produced and distributed by Select Pictures. The film is based on a 1914 Broadway play of the same name, and not related to the Kate Chopin short story "A Pair of Silk Stockings".
Katherine Milligan “Kitty” Garesché was the founder and headmistress of the Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, California. She was Kate Chopin's longtime friend.
Silk Stockings is a 1927 American comedy film directed by Wesley Ruggles and written by Beatrice Van and Albert DeMond. It is based on the 1914 play A Pair of Silk Stockings by Cyril Harcourt. The film stars Laura La Plante, John Harron, Otis Harlan, William Austin, Marcella Daly and Heinie Conklin. The film was released on October 2, 1927, by Universal Pictures. The film survives.
Smith is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written when he was becoming a successful dramatist. The play was first seen in London in 1909.
"An Egyptian Cigarette" is a short story written by Kate Chopin, first published in April 1900 in Vogue 15. This short story is about how the power of the cigarette can have the narrator dream a disturbing dream where her lover abandoned her.
