A Pair of Silk Stockings

The major conflict in this text might seem to be an internal one, or even one between Mrs. Sommers and her children, but it is also a conflict between Mrs. Sommers and society, as a result of the demands that it makes on women and mothers. The theme of Society’s Expectation of Women’s Self-Sacrifice addresses this struggle between late Victorian society’s expectation that a wife and mother ought to be utterly self-sacrificing with a very human, personal desire for comfort, freedom, and choice.

As if to avoid either condemning or overtly supporting the way Mrs. Sommers spends the $15—on herself rather than on her children, as her social duty would mandate—Chopin adopts a nonjudgmental tone. Chopin’s ambivalent handling informs her main theme of Duty Versus Desire. There is no language in the text to suggest that Mrs. Sommers ought to be criticized or blamed for spending the money on herself; for example, she is never referred to as selfish, greedy, or any other word that invokes a negative connotation. There is also no language to confirm the idea that Chopin or the reader should wholeheartedly endorse absolute self-indulgence.