Women as Round Characters in Kate Chopin's Stories

This essay explores how the female protagonists in Kate Chopin's stories, 'The Story of an Hour', 'The Storm', and 'A Respectable Woman', are round characters who undergo transformation and break free from societal norms.

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Topic: Women in the stories of Kate Chopin
In literature, Flat or static characters refer to characters who are two-dimensional and
uncomplicated in nature and does not undergo transformation in the course of a narrative while
round or dynamic characters refer to characters who are complex in nature and undergo a
transformation in the course of a narrative. E.M. Forster, in his book entitled, ‘Aspects of the
Novel’, elucidates on the types of characters. The examples of a flat character include Mrs.
Micawber in the novel ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens and the example of a round
character is Becky Sharp in William Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair’. This essay will try to show how
all the female protagonists in the three stories of Kate Chopin, namely ‘The Story of an Hour’,
‘The Storm’ and ‘A Respectable Woman’ are round characters.
In the story entitled, ‘The Story of an Hour’ written on April, 19, 1894 by Kate Chopin,
Mrs. Mallard is shocked at seeing her husband alive after he is reportedly been dead in a train
accident. The story reflects the conditions of women in nineteenth century American society.
The condition is so dreary that a woman who tries to escape from the life-denying confines of a
society that is patriarchal in nature ends up destroying herself (Cunningham 50). The themes of
the story include the notion of freedom, fulfillment of the self, selfhood, the connotation of love
and what Kate Chopin calls the “possession of self-assertion” . Among the plethora of characters

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in the story, Mrs. Mallard is the only dynamic or round character because after an initial outburst
and a moment of weakness caused by her husband’s death, she undergoes a change in her mind
and realizes that ‘love, the unsolved mystery…” counts for very little. Love does not replace
selfhood; rather the precondition to love is selfhood. Mrs. Mallard grieves for the husband whom
she loved but at the same time, she feels a sense of freedom for breaking free from the strictures
of a patriarchal society and revels in a “monstrous joy” at the hope of being able to achieve self-
fulfillment now (Deneau 211). In this way, she undergoes a change. The death of her husband
allows her to reconcile the two –aspects of her consciousness- internal and external, a double
consciousness that exists within her (Deneau 211). Even though Mrs. Mallard is constrained by
marriage and societal conditioning, she is able to reclaim her life but she pays a heavy price
because in the process of uniting both parts of her consciousness, she ends up dying
(Cunningham 51). In the story, Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine Mallard is a flat character.
The short story entitled ‘The Storm’ composed on July 19, 1898 and first published in
‘The Complete Works of Kate Chopins’ in 1969, is a sequel to Kate Chopin’s earlier work ‘At
the ’Cadian Ball’. The ‘storm’ truly ends not only in a literal manner but also figuratively. After
a storm of passion and desire between the two characters Calixta and Alcee Laballiere,
everything is restored, especially their marriage. The story begins the way it ended with Calixta
being concerned for Bobinot’s physical dryness and Clarisses’s continual devotion to her
husband even though she is surrounded by old friends and acquaintances. This reflects the
solidity of their marriages (Borici 248). Calixta is a round character and through the character of
Calixta shows Kate Chopin’s freedom through language. The story reflects the conflict between
the sexual liberation of a woman and the social constraints that women are subjected to. Calixta

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is a round character because she manages to break free from the constraints imposed on her by
society thereby undergoing a change.
The short story entitled, ‘A Respectable Woman’ by Kate Chopin , was written on
January 20, 1894 and was published in the magazine Vogue on February 15, 1894. In the story,
Mrs. Baroda is a round character as she undergoes a change as is reflected in the closing lines of
the story where Mrs. Baroda says, “I have overcome everything! you will see. This time I shall
be very nice to him.” When Mrs. Baroda meets Gouvernail for the first time, she is attracted and
drawn to him. She is unaware of the reason, is left feeling puzzled, and feels that she must leave
her home in order to be away from Gouvernail. By the end of the story, Mrs. Baroda, undergoes
a massive change, as she conquers everything. She conquers her own passions; she conquers her
own desires for Gouvernail and is victorious in the end, as she does not feel anything for
Gouvernail anymore.
Kate Chopin through her works shows the growth of her women characters. In all the
three stories, the female protagonists grow mentally and there is a transformation in their
character. All the three characters break free from societal strictures, norms and expectations.
They undergo a change and that makes them round characters.

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REFERENCES:
Boriçi, Florinda. "Emancipation: A Constant Theme in Kate Chopin’s Short Stories." Journal of
Educational and Social Research 4.4 (2014): 248.
Call, Tanner. "Patriarchy & Feminism in the Early 20th Century: Finding Middle Ground
Through Kate Chopin." (2017).
Cunningham, Mark. "The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate
Chopin's" Story of an Hour"." English Language Notes 42.1 (2004): 48-55.
Deneau, Daniel P. "Chopin's the Story of an Hour." The Explicator 61.4 (2003): 210-213.
Evans, Robert C., ed. Kate Chopin's short fiction: a critical companion. Locust Hill Press, 2001.
Sabbagh, Mahmoud Reza Ghorban, and Mehri Ghafourian Saghaei. "Conjured-Up Reality
Shattered: Examining the “Uncertain” Ideology Underlying Chopin's “The Story of an
Hour”." Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 158 (2014): 296-303.

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