A Respectable Woman
A contented wife is unsettled by her husband's visiting friend and discovers a desire that her respectability can neither approve nor extinguish.
Mrs Baroda is happily married and expects to dislike the friend her husband invites for a long stay. Instead she finds herself drawn to the quiet, undemanding Gouvernail in ways she cannot explain or admit. When desire stirs in a respectable woman, the only safe answer may be flight, and her final words leave everything to wonder.
What happens
Mrs Baroda is mildly annoyed to learn her husband Gaston has invited his old friend Gouvernail to spend a week at their Louisiana plantation. She expects a brilliant or boisterous guest and is puzzled when Gouvernail proves quiet, reserved, and content simply to be left alone. Far from disliking him, she grows fascinated, studying him and seeking his company even as she fails to understand her own interest. One night he sits beside her on a bench and speaks softly and intimately about old times, and she is gripped by a sudden, powerful urge to touch him, which she resists by leaving. Disturbed by feelings she cannot reconcile with her respectability, Mrs Baroda goes away to the city rather than face him, and refuses Gaston's later suggestion that Gouvernail visit again. By the story's end, though, she has overcome her struggle and tells her husband she will be very nice to their friend, a reversal Chopin leaves teasingly unexplained.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- setup An unwelcome guest
Mrs Baroda is vexed that Gaston has invited his friend Gouvernail to stay a week at the plantation.
- rising The quiet man
Gouvernail proves reserved and undemanding, defying her expectations and stirring her curiosity instead.
- turn Fascination
Mrs Baroda finds herself studying him and seeking his company, unable to name what draws her.
- climax The bench
One night he speaks softly beside her and she is seized by a sudden longing to reach out and touch him.
- falling Flight to the city
Shaken by desire she cannot reconcile with duty, she leaves for the city rather than confront it.
- rising The husband's wish
Gaston later proposes inviting Gouvernail back, and at first she firmly resists the idea.
- resolution I shall be very nice
Months on, she tells Gaston she has conquered herself and will be very nice to Gouvernail, leaving her meaning open.
Characters and how they connect
Mrs Baroda
Protagonist
A respectable, self-assured wife unsettled by an unexpected attraction she struggles to understand and contain.
Gaston Baroda
Husband
Mrs Baroda's affectionate, untroubled husband, who fondly invites his friend and never suspects his wife's turmoil.
Gouvernail
The guest
A quiet, self-contained journalist friend of Gaston's whose calm reserve quietly draws Mrs Baroda toward desire.
The narrator
Voice
Chopin's intimate third-person narrator, granting access to Mrs Baroda's confusion while preserving her final secret.
Character map who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
- Mrs Baroda → Gaston Baroda married to
- Gaston Baroda → Gouvernail old friend of
- Mrs Baroda → Gouvernail drawn to
- Gouvernail → Mrs Baroda unaware of
Themes what the story is really about
Female desire and respectability
Chopin sets a wife's awakening longing against the social demand that a respectable woman feel and admit no such thing.
The unknowability of the self
Mrs Baroda cannot explain her own feelings, and the story dwells on how desire arrives unbidden and resists reason.
Repression versus release
Her flight to the city is a repression that the ambiguous ending may quietly undo, leaving the balance unresolved.
Marriage and its silences
Gaston's trusting affection coexists with a wife's secret turmoil, exposing the unspoken interior life within even a happy marriage.
Symbols & motifs
The bench in the dark
The shadowed seat becomes the threshold of temptation, the place where propriety and desire meet in the dark.
Gouvernail's cigar and silence
His quiet, self-sufficient presence symbolizes an undemanding masculinity that draws her precisely because it asks nothing.
The city
Her retreat to the city stands for flight and self-control, distance imposed to smother a feeling she cannot govern.
The night air
The soft enveloping darkness mirrors the half-acknowledged stirring of senses Mrs Baroda dares not bring into daylight.
Recurring motifs
Touch withheld. The urge to reach out and the deliberate refusal to do so recur as the physical sign of desire battling restraint.
Misjudged expectations. Mrs Baroda repeatedly expects one thing of Gouvernail and meets another, a pattern that mirrors her surprise at herself.
Voice and silence. Gouvernail's low, intimate speech and the things left unsaid between the couple thread quietly through the tale.
Conflicts
Person vs. self
Mrs Baroda wars with an attraction that contradicts her image of herself as a respectable, faithful wife.
Person vs. society
Her desire collides with the era's strict code of feminine propriety, which forbids even acknowledging such a feeling.
Person vs. person
A subtle tension runs between Mrs Baroda and the unwitting Gouvernail, whose calm presence provokes her crisis.
Literary devices
- Ambiguity
- The final line withholds Mrs Baroda's true intention, making the ending an open question that defines the story.
- Irony
- She expected to dislike Gouvernail and instead desires him, and her respectable retreat may mask its own surrender.
- Free indirect discourse
- Chopin narrates Mrs Baroda's confusion from within, letting the reader feel her bewilderment without full explanation.
- Imagery
- Night, soft voices, and the brush of nearness build a charged sensual atmosphere around the bench scene.
- Understatement
- Desire is conveyed through small gestures and silences rather than declaration, leaving its force implicit and unsettling.
Important quotes
“She was not a woman to be drawn into a flirtation with one of her husband's guests.”
“She had a desire to reach out her hand in the darkness and touch him with the sensitive tips of her fingers.”
“She wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek, she did not care what.”
“I have overcome everything! you will see. This time I shall be very nice to him.”
After fleeing Gouvernail to the city and refusing for months to have him back, Mrs Baroda surprises her husband by proposing the visit herself, telling him she has overcome everything and will this time be very nice to their friend. Chopin ends there, declining to clarify what very nice means. Read one way, Mrs Baroda has mastered her desire, regained her composure, and can now treat Gouvernail with ordinary, harmless warmth. Read another, she has stopped resisting and intends to pursue the longing she once fled. The phrase overcome everything is deliberately double-edged: it can mean she has conquered the desire or conquered the scruples that opposed it. Chopin's refusal to resolve the question is the story's whole point, preserving the mystery of a woman's inner life and quietly suggesting that respectability and desire may not be so easily separated.
Common misreadings
MythThe ending clearly shows Mrs Baroda has defeated her desire.
ActuallyThe line is intentionally ambiguous; overcome everything can mean she conquered her scruples rather than her longing.
MythMrs Baroda actually has an affair in the story.
ActuallyNothing is acted upon within the text; the drama is entirely internal, and the future is left for the reader to imagine.
MythGouvernail deliberately seduces her.
ActuallyHe is quiet, passive, and seemingly unaware; the attraction arises from within Mrs Baroda, not from his pursuit.
Test yourself
1. Why is Mrs Baroda initially annoyed at the start of the story?
She is vexed that Gaston has invited Gouvernail for a week, expecting to dislike the visit.
2. How does Mrs Baroda respond to her sudden longing on the bench?
She resists the urge by leaving, then withdraws to the city rather than confront her feelings.
3. What makes the story's ending famous?
Her promise to be very nice to Gouvernail is deliberately open, inviting opposite interpretations.
Mrs Baroda is a happily married woman who is annoyed when her husband invites his quiet friend Gouvernail to stay for a week. To her surprise she becomes really drawn to the calm guest, and one night sitting next to him in the dark she suddenly wants to reach out and touch him. Confused and a little scared by these feelings, she runs off to the city instead of acting on them. Later she tells her husband she has gotten over it and will be very nice to Gouvernail next time, but Chopin never tells us whether that means she beat the feeling or finally gave in.
Ask the story
Ask anything and get an answer grounded in the text: why a character acts, what a symbol means, how this compares to another work. This story is in the public domain, so the tutor can quote the text directly.
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Compare & connect the story universe
The Story of an Hour
Chopin's signature exploration of a wife's hidden inner life and the gap between social roles and private feeling.
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Both trace a respectable woman's pull toward a forbidden, self-directed pleasure her circumstances discourage.
The Open Window
Both stories end on a deliberate ambiguity that hands interpretation to the reader and rewards a second look.
The Necklace
Each centers on a married woman whose private longing quietly drives a domestic story toward an unspoken reckoning.
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- What does the ending of A Respectable Woman mean
- What is the theme of A Respectable Woman by Kate Chopin
- Does Mrs Baroda have an affair with Gouvernail
- How does A Respectable Woman explore the theme of female desire and respectability?
- How does A Respectable Woman explore the theme of the unknowability of the self?
- What is the central conflict in A Respectable Woman, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how Kate Chopin develops the theme of female desire and respectability in A Respectable Woman. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the bench in the dark in A Respectable Woman. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does Kate Chopin use ambiguity to shape the reader’s experience of A Respectable Woman?
- Some readers assume that the ending clearly shows Mrs Baroda has defeated her desire. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- What does the ending of A Respectable Woman mean
- What is the theme of A Respectable Woman by Kate Chopin
- Does Mrs Baroda have an affair with Gouvernail
- What does I shall be very nice to him mean
- Why does Mrs Baroda go to the city
- How does Chopin portray female desire in A Respectable Woman
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. Quotations are from Kate Chopin's A Respectable Woman (1894), which is in the public domain.