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IT IS NO NEWS THAT, FAILING TO FIND FULFILLMENT in their marriages, wives in Kate Chopin's fiction are sometimes driven in their desperation to suicide, adultery, or desertion. But in "A Pair of Silk Stockings,"1 a story too rarely discussed at length, Chopin presents a woman who tries a different expedient to escape the difficulties imposed by her marriage, a brief foray into the realm of consumerism. The effort fails, as Chopin shows that, however fashionable what Thorstein Veblen called "conspicuous consumption" might seem in the expanding national economy of the late 189Os, it can offer only ephemeral and illusory gratifications for one enmeshed in the enduring constraints imposed by her marriage.
Finding herself "the unexpected possessor" of fifteen dollars, "little Mrs. Sommers," who has known "better days," now long past, "before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers," decides immediately to use the money for children's clothing so that she might have "her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives" (p. 500).2 On impulse, however, this long-deprived woman spends all the money on herself, striving for one day at least of self-indulgence, one day that might hint of some personal autonomy in a pinched and narrowed existence.
At a quick glance, Mrs. Sommers's effort seems something of a success. She buys herself a pair of silk stockings and then, to complement them, one pair of costly shoes and one of kid gloves; next, her spree in the store completed, she treats herself to two "high-priced magazines," browses through them while having a pleasant lunch in an upscale restaurant, and closes her day by attending the theater for a matinee performance. She has enjoyed herself thoroughly. Further, as Doris Davis sees it, Mrs. Sommers has used her money "to nurture her sense of esthetics, an action that Chopin seems to suggest is important for this character's development."3 Davis goes on to argue that "Mrs. Sommers has developed a feeling of independence and fulfillment in her judicious use of money, and might well serve as a model for Edna Pontellier's emerging sense of autonomy" (p. 148). Similarly, Mary E. Papke comments that Mrs. Sommers, "physically and spiritually exhausted, arrives 'at [a] moment of contemplation and action.' In choosing to.