A Pair of Silk Stockings

Summary
Little Mrs. Sommers unexpectedly acquires fifteen dollars, which seems like a large
amount to her. Feeling important and wealthy, she considers how to invest her
money, feeling that she must carefully allocate her funds. During the night, she
thinks of a sensible use for the money.
She determines that she should spend a dollar or two extra for Janie's shoes, so that
they will last longer and be of better quality, and she plans to buy some fabric for
her children's clothing. After that, she will still have enough money for new
stockings and hats for everyone, which pleases her because her children will have
new clothing for the first time in a while. Mrs. Sommers used to have more money
long ago, before her marriage, but she does not worry about the past or the future,
focusing mostly on the present.
Mrs. Sommers is accustomed to bargaining, but today she is tired and forgets to eat
lunch prior to shopping. While sitting on a stool to rest before her shopping, she
realizes that her hand has brushed against a pair of two-dollar silk stockings. She
continues to feel the luxurious fabric and asks the shop girl for a pair in her size.
After choosing a black pair of stockings, Mrs. Sommers buys them and goes directly
to the ladies' waiting room to change. For once, she abandons thinking about
responsibility or about why she is so satisfied at her purchase. She sits in the room
for a while, reveling in her stockings, before going to the shoe department, where
she tries to find a pair of shoes to suit her stockings.
She pays for a stylish pair of boots, although they cost a dollar or two more than her
usual shoes, and she then goes to the glove counter. She has not been fitted with
gloves for a long time because they are too expensive, but she takes pleasure in the
experience. She also buys two expensive magazines such as those that she used to
read long ago, and she enjoys a new feeling of assurance in her new clothes.
Hungry, she decides against her usual approach, which is to wait until she returns
home and then find a bit of food. Instead, she follows her impulse and goes to a nice
restaurant, where she has a small, tasty meal as she takes off her gloves and reads
her magazine, sipping her wine. No one looks at her askance, and not minding the
price, Mrs. Sommers even leaves a tip for the waiter as she leaves.
She next enters a theater to watch a play. Many of the people are at the theater
primarily to enjoy the play, but Mrs. Sommers absorbs the entire experience.
Afterward, Mrs. Sommers waits for a cable car to take her home, and the man

opposite her studies her expression. Bemused, he sees nothing and does not
discern her desire for the cable car to keep going forever and never stop.
Analysis
In "A Pair of Silk Stockings," Little Mrs. Sommers faces a minor dilemma that
eventually becomes a conscious expression of her desire to return to a past that she
can no longer have, reflecting her subconscious craving for the autonomy and
independence that she does not have while under the pressures of poverty. The
nostalgic desire to reclaim past grandeur recalls the dilemma of Ma'ame Plagie in
Chopin's eponymous short story, although Ma'ame Plagie lives in the past and
sacrifices it for the present whereas Mrs. Sommers lives in the present and
temporarily leaves her reality in order to recall her past. Mrs. Sommers does not
merely aspire to wealth in the manner of those who have never had money; instead,
as Mrs. Sommers's neighbors note, she has in fact seen better days and intuitively
equates her youth with simple luxuries such as silk stockings and kid gloves.
The second element of Mrs. Sommers's motivation for her impulse purchases
relates to her need to assert personal autonomy. As Chopin establishes at the
beginning of the story, Mrs. Sommers has several children to feed and clothe, and
her first thoughts for spending her money come directly from the need to scrimp
and save every scrap of her money. Although fifteen dollars had a great deal of
purchasing power in the 1890s, much more than it would have today, it was not a
significant amount of money for the long term. The indication that Mrs. Sommers
cannot truly afford to spend it on luxury items suggests that she is greatly
constricted in her actions by the requirements of minimum subsistence to which she
is now reduced. Thus, Mrs. Sommers's purchase of silk stockings, a plain symbol of
relatively luxurious abundance, may be interpreted as her attempt to deny the
limits characterizing her worldly situation.
If Mrs. Sommers's excesses are a refutation of the powerlessness caused by her lack
of wealth, then the manner in which she succumbs to temptation is ironic because
Chopin's narration suggests that her decision to make her purchases is not made
entirely by choice. Whereas she actively plans to buy hats and clothes for her
children, Chopin describes her as "not thinking at all" after putting on her stockings.
The tone of the narration is distant and dreamy, with a simple description of Mrs.
Sommers's actions and limited discussion of her motivations. As a result, the
protagonist seems to hold even less control over her behavior when indulging
herself than when the lack of money is the deciding factor.
The readiness with which Mrs. Sommers gives in to temptation might seem at first
glance to be a sign of succumbing or exhaustion in the face of suppressed
consumerism. Certainly, Mrs. Sommers' lack of food and subsequent fatigue provide
the impetus for her initial acquisition of the silk stockings. Chopin's narration,
however, does not leave the impression of a woman who is weak and easily swayed.
Instead, Mrs. Sommers is not condemned and does not condemn herself for
indulging herself and providing a day of respite from her difficult life. Even when she
returns by cable car to her home, she shows no regret for her lack of fiscal control
and exhibits only a wish to continue her borrowed life. It seems that her dominant
motivation for giving in is not the crass joy of shopping but, as in so many of

Chopin's stories, a deeply held urge toward freedom, indulged here by releasing
herself, however briefly, from the bonds of relative poverty.
Although the end of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" does not end with Mrs. Sommers in a
position that is significantly worse than that in which she commenced the story, it
still bears an element of tragedy and loss. Fifteen dollars has been enough to bring
Mrs. Sommers back to her past and to give her an evanescent feeling of control, but
it does not suffice to change her basic situation. Although the purchases made by
Mrs. Sommers will remain with her until they wear out, almost all of the freedom
that she enjoyed will disappear once she leaves the cable car, and she will be left
again with nothing but memories and unfulfilled desires.