A

Respectable
Woman
Andrea Quintana, Erwin
Alvarez and Danna Chavez
“Perhaps it is better to wake up
after all, even to suffer, rather
than to remain a dupe to
illusions all one's life”
—Kate Chopin
Biography

Kate Chopin (1850–1904) is an American

writer best known for her stories about the
inner lives of sensitive, daring women. Her
novel The Awakening and her short stories
are read today in countries around the world,
and she is widely recognized as one of
America’s essential authors.
Summary
A Respectable Woman’ is a short story by the
American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904).
Chopin wrote ‘A Respectable Woman’ in 1894
and it originally appeared in Vogue magazine
that year, before being reprinted in her 1897
collection A Night in Acadie. This collection
met with some hostile reviews, with one critic
objecting to the ‘unnecessary coarseness’ of
some of the subject-matter.
 Setting
The story takes place on Gaston
Baroda's sugar plantation in
Louisiana, apparently in the 1880s
or early 1890s.
Characters
● Mrs. Baroda
● Gouvernail
● Gaston Baroda
 Mrs. Baroda
Married with Gaston, they are owners of a sugar
plantation, suggesting they are wealthy and part of the
higher class. Initially she comes in as pretentious and
affected, since she loves her husband and is bothered by
the fact of entertaining guests in her house, since she only
desires to have alone time with her husband “a period of
unbroken silence” Nevertheless this thought is challenged
by temptation in the person of Gouvernail, a polite,
unassuming visitor to the Baroda plantation.
 Gouvernail

A journalist, a college friend of Mrs. Baroda’s husband. His

name in French means a rudder, a tiller, with the
implication that he is someone who knows the direction,
who understands where things are headed. Gouvernail is a
also major character in Chopin’s story “Athénaïse,” and he
appears at Edna Potellier’s party in Chapter XXX of The
Awakening, where he quotes lines of poetry, as he does in
this story
 Gaston Baroda
A lovely and wealthy man, who loves her wife Mrs. Baroda
and owns the Baroda Plantation. he is very social and is
open for visits to his plantation and house. He also
described as Gouvernail as “intelligent“ and a “man of
ideas“ he is someone whos not enclosed in a set standard
and is able to speak his mind and is ”more free” than his
wife, even though he treats her with great respect and
love, often referring to her as “ma belle” (my beautiful) or
“chére amie” (dear friend)
 Theme
● Desire vs Restraint
● Appearance
● Identity
 Analysis
● The story covers her conflict between what she feels
and what social norms dictate. basically, we can be
read for her identity search, from beginning to end
throws search draws the attention. additionally, we are
able to induce that Kate Chopin wants to emphasize on
the lack of individualism during that time period, since
are never able to know the main characters first name,
since she is always addressed by Mrs. Baroda or “ma
belle” and “chere amie” this illustrates that she is not
an individual, she is a wife of a man that has to act
upon a set of standards and conducts imposed by
society.
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