A Pair Of Silk Stockings

A powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.

Written in 1897 by Kate Chopin, this short story follows a mother who spends her money on herself, rather than on her children. 'Poor little Sommers' as it is written in the short story, finds herself a fortune of 15 dollars. After a process of calculations, as the angel in the house, she chooses to spend this money on her children. Yet when she goes shopping, she comes across a pair of silk stockings... And maybe for the first time in years of being a wife and a mother, she feels herself, as a woman, remembering who she was before today. Maybe in a sense the stockings bring her back to life. The stockings bring the repressed urges to the surface.

This silky, luxurious thing reminds her own femininity and her own worth as a woman; not a wife, not a devoted mother but an independent woman who knows her worth. Yes, as you can understand from this brief summary, it is a feminist story that challenged the norms of 19th century. But to analyze in a more critical sense, we need to learn about The Cult of Domesticity.

A Pair of Silk Stockings provides us a lens that examines the 19th century ideology 'Cult of True Womanhood' in other terms Cult of Domesticity, in which the ideal woman is examined through four virtues: purity, piety, submissiveness and domesticity.

The main focus of these ideas was that the woman in the family meant the light of the home, the angel in the house.

Mrs. Sommers violates these values promoted by this ideology. For instance, values like purity and piety are violated as she gets tempted by this indulgent behavior of pleasure and spends her day as a departure from hell. She ignores her duties as the angel in the house, and solely relies on her pleasure.

Submissiveness, on the other hand, is violated by Mrs. Sommers. According to Cult of True Womanhood, a woman must be silent, naive, passive, child-like and obedient. Yet here in this story we have a female character that takes control of her own emotions, wishes and actions. The decision-maker is now Mrs. Sommers; neither her thoughts based on society nor her responsibilities as a wife and mother play a role anymore.

The main focus of these ideas was that the woman in the family meant the light of the home, the angel in the house.

The angel in the house.. According to domesticity, the fourth virtue, women should exist within the household; she is only expected to do chores, nurture, take care of the husband and children. She is expected to be feminine, by feminine they meant 'weak, submissive, and purely angelic' and she is expected to never leave home.

Mrs. Sommers seems like a devoted, modest mother, yet that day everything changes. Through Mrs. Sommer's character, Kate Chopin highlights the complexities women face, and criticizes the limitations imposed on women through these virtues created by society and patriarchy.

The silk stockings remind her of her repressed desires and her strength to live life to the fullest as a woman. Not a wife, not a mother, a woman.