Women as Round Characters in Kate Chopin's Stories

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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

2ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT
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