Student Question
In "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin, whom does Mrs. Sommers prioritize?
Quick answer:
In "A Pair of Silk Stockings," Mrs. Sommers initially prioritizes her children's needs when she unexpectedly acquires extra money. She carefully plans how to spend it on them. However, once at the department store, she is tempted by silk stockings and indulges in personal luxuries, including new boots, gloves, a meal, and a theater outing. For a day, she escapes her frugal life, savoring a taste of personal freedom and past comfort.
In Kate Chopin's "A Pair of Silk Stockings," when she unexpectedly finds that she has an extra fifteen dollars, Mrs. Sommers first considers the needs of her children.
Because "[T]he question of investment was one that occupied her greatly," Mrs. Sommers deliberates so intensely that she walks around for one or two days, barely conscious of her surroundings. Instead, she is "absorbed in speculation and calculation" because she does not wish to act rashly and later regret her actions. In fact, she lies awake calculating how she will slightly increase the amounts that she would usually spend on each child, and how she can make the best use of her windfall.
With "the needs of the present absorb[ing] her every faculty," this mother rides the cable car to town. However, when she arrives, Mrs. Sommers feels rather faint because in her preoccupation she has forgotten to eat...
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lunch. So, as she enters a department store, Mrs. Sommers is "a little faint and tired." Therefore, she sits upon a revolving stool at a counter to rest, but she inadvertently lays her hand upon a stack of silk stockings. Just then a clerk asks her if she would like to examine the store's line of silk hosiery, and Mrs. Sommers smiles at the temptation. Nevertheless, she continues to feel "the soft sheeny luxurious things." With both of her hands, she holds them up to watch them "glide serpent-like through her fingers," and the temptation becomes too great for the enervated Mrs. Sommers. Succumbing to this temptation, Mrs. Sommers selects a pair of black stockings and pays for them. After making her purchase, Mrs. Sommers goes to the ladies' waiting room and eagerly changes her cotton stockings for this luxurious pair of silk stockings.
These rather impetuous actions initiate the beginning of an afternoon in
which she uses the fifteen dollars much differently from how she has planned.
Mrs. Sommers indulges herself in small pleasures such as a new pair of
polished, pointed-tipped boots and well-fitting kid gloves. Further, she enjoys
a delightful lunch and attends a play.
For this one day, Mrs. Summers escapes her life of frugality, returning home
with "a poignant wish...that the cable car would never stop...." so that she
could reclaim a past life of comfort.