Kate Chopin’s A Respectable Women is one of the best stories from her which is about a woman who is attracted to her husband’s college friend. The story covers her conflict between what she feels and what social norms dictate. This conflict is universal, everywhere and every time this can occur. In the background of this conflict, there are some basic conventional and cliché ideas which constitute the main disagreement of feminists. Feminism is a movement which advocates the social, political and economic equality of sexes. We are not sure whether or not Kate Chopin was a feminist; however, it can be clearly seen that her ideas harmonize with the feminist approach. For instance, in that story, feminist ideas can be seen, such as women’s search for her identity, the effect of social norms on women’s lives and women’s understanding of sexuality.
The main character is Mrs. Baroda, the whole story can be read for her identity search. From the beginning to end, this search draws the attention. Our name is a symbol of our individual identity; however, in the story, we’ve never learned her first name. Her husband calls her with some French expression such as “ma belle” and “chere amie” but he never uses her name. Another example is that her name is given as “Mrs. Baroda”, so with her husband surname. This illustrates that she is not an individual; she can exist only as a wife of a man. From the feminist perspective, having an identity has significance, otherwise women always need men and this creates inequality between them. Nonetheless, Mrs. Baroda starts to discover herself. While she thinks about temptation, she thinks that “there are some battles in life which a human being must fight alone”. This is the first time she thinks herself alone and sees herself as an independent individual. Therefore, we can say that she starts to individualize.
Another feminist idea in the story is about the women’s understanding of sexuality. Sexuality is a concept which is generally associated with men in conventional societies. Feminism asks “How about women?”, because this common perception doesn’t include women’s wishes and people cannot understand what women want. Kate Chopin also mentioned these problems and she wanted to show the women’s understanding of sexuality in her story. Mrs. Baroda thinks that Gouvernail is different from her husband. “Gouvernail’s personality puzzled Mrs. Baroda”, this expression shows that she confuses about him. Actually, she has some feelings for Gouvernail. But she could not express these feelings even herself, this can be understood by this sentence: “why she liked him she could not explain satisfactorily to herself”. Later, these feelings increased and she wants to “draw close to him and whisper against his cheek”. Her sexual feelings cause that she feels guilty; because of that, she thinks to tempt her husband. But actually she wants to be loved but her husband doesn’t care about her wish. At the beginning of the story, she dreams “a period of unbroken rest, now, and undisturbed tete-a-tete with her husband”. But her husband breaks those dreams by inviting his friend. As we can see in this story, women cannot express their wish and as a social norm, women cannot expect romantic things from men.
Generally, the social norm is an obstacle for women. Under this pressure, a woman cannot reach her real capacity, because of this reason feminism totally disagree with some cliché ideas or women stereotype of societies. Mrs. Baroda is one of the good examples to realize the impact of social norms on women. Social norms create a conflict for her; this conflict can be understood by her thinking. After her confession to herself, she thinks that “she did not care what-as she might have done if she had not been a respectable woman”. This conflict is based on social norms. Society disapproves of the emotional feelings of a married woman to someone else. In this story, the relativity of being a respectable woman is handled with Mrs. Baroda’s conflict. At the end of the story, there is no certainty, we don’t know if she will choose her feelings or overcome them. By that way, Kate Chopin makes us questioned; being respectable means living according to social norms or living our lives without regret.
To conclude, A Respectable Women illustrates some strong feminist notions. When we think about Mrs. Baroda’s situation, we can make lots of connections between her and many women. Unlike Mrs. Baroda, many women live in that complicated situation in real life. From the feminist approach, Mrs. Baroda is an icon to show their lost identities, their perspective on sexuality and how women feel under pressure due to social norms.
(16.07.2013)
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