Desiree's Baby"
To what extent does Desiree's identity depend on her role as mother? What other examples of motherhood does the story provide? How do these versions of motherhood shape our responses to Desiree? To Armand? How does race shape the selfhood of the various characters here?  Our sympathies? This is one of Chopin's most famous stories: what do you think accounts for its popularity with readers and critics?

"La Belle Zoraide"
What role does being a mother play in this story? (i.e., how would Zoraide's fate have been different if she had not become a mother?) What relationships between motherhood and sexual attraction does this story suggest? What are the limits on either for women? Notice the framing of this story--Manna-Loulou's nightly stories to Madame DeLisle. How does the frame affect the story? That is, what difference does it make in our reading of Zoraide's story that a black woman tells it to a white woman in another language--"the soft Creole patois"?

Both "Desiree's Baby" and "La Belle Zoraide" are unusual for Chopin in their antebellum setting, which many post-war stories celebrated as a golden time, "befo' de war." Compare and contrast the plights of the mothers in these two stories. What role does race play in their situations?  "Neg Creole" is another story involving race. How would you describe Chopin's attitudes toward race? Do you think her characterizations of Chicot are stereotyped? why or why not? How does Chicot's gender shape his situation? Mamzelle Aglae's? Which attitudes in these stories seem more or less conventional for the times to you? Which don't?

"Athenaise"
"Athenaise" is one of Chopin's most developed stories about marriage and motherhood. What is Athenaise's problem with her new husband? Do you find her changed attitude at the end of the story convincing? Why? What is the relationship between motherhood and sexuality here? On the way to retrieve his wife, Cazeau recalls his father's recapture of Gabriel. Compare Chopin's use of the parallels between marriage and slavery with earlier writers' use of this same image (e.g., Grimke). What is the effect of using this parallel? What are its limits (i. e., in what ways does it not work)? How does motherhood change Athenaise? Do you think she will be happy in her new role? Read the final paragraphs closely for evidence of your position.

"A Pair of Silk Stockings"
Little Mrs. Sommers chooses herself over her children's needs. How are we to evaluate that choice? What will happen when she gets home? Is the last sentence optimistic or pessimistic about her choices? What notions of the "good mother" operate in this story? Does Mrs. Sommers measure up? Compare Chopin's view of women's relation to motherhood in this story with women's relation to marriage in "A Respectable Woman." What is the nature of women's "right" to selfhood in these stories?What do the last lines of "A Respectable Woman" suggest about what will happen next for Mrs. Baroda? How would you explain the title of the story?

"At the 'Cadian Ball" and "The Storm" involved the same four characters. What are the obstacles to the lovers in the first story? What would it take to overcome them? Why is each person's reason for marrying? What has changed for the couples in the second story? How do you account for these changes? What do you make of the final section--and the final line--of "The Storm"?

In writing short stories, Chopin distances her self from her subject: that is, if she reveals herself and her opinions at all, she reveals them metaphorically: through how she portrays her characters and how she structures and selects the lives she creates for them. What do we learn about Chopin's values and concerns from her fiction? In what ways does she seem "southern" to you?

If you've read The Awakening, you might find some of the same interests in these stories that you found in that novel. Or not. To what extent do you "recognize" the author of The Awakening in her short stories--all of which, by the way, except for "The Storm," were written first. (And what would you make of that exception?!)