“Madame Célestin’s Divorce” is Kate Chopin’s short story about a woman who consults a lawyer about divorcing her husband.
By the Editors of KateChopin.org
Read the story online
Characters
Time and place
Themes
When the story was written and published
Questions and answers
Accurate texts
New All of Kate Chopin’s short stories in Spanish
Books that discuss Kate Chopin’s short stories
Kate Chopin’s “Madame Célestin’s Divorce” online and in print
You can read the story online, although if you’re citing a passage for research purposes, you should check your citation against one of the accurate texts listed below.
In print you can find “Madame Célestin’s Divorce” in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin, in the Penguin Classics edition of Chopin’s Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, and in the Library of America Kate Chopin volume, as well as in other paperback and hardcover books. For publication information about these books, see the section “For students and scholars” near the bottom of this page.
“Madame Célestin’s Divorce” characters
- Madame Célestin
- Lawyer Paxton
“Madame Célestin’s Divorce” time and place
The story takes place in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in the late nineteenth century.
“Madame Célestin’s Divorce” themes
The subject of divorce in this story, as we explain in the questions and answers below, is of interest to readers. And readers wonder about sexual symbolism in Chopin’s use of a broom handle in the closing paragraph.
You can read about finding themes in Kate Chopin’s stories and novels on the Themes page of this site.
When Kate Chopin’s “Madame Célestin’s Divorce” was written and published
The story was written on May 24 and 25, 1893, and first published in Bayou Folk, Chopin’s 1894 collection of short stories.
You can find out when Kate Chopin wrote each of her short stories and when and where each was first published.
Questions and answers about “Madame Célestin’s Divorce”
Q: Isn’t divorce an unusual subject for Kate Chopin?
A: No. The subject of divorce is central to Chopin’s first novel, At Fault. Divorce was a matter of much discussion in Kate Chopin’s time–in both America and Europe. In the 1880s the divorce rate in the United States was increasing more than twice as fast as was the rate of population growth.
Q: Why are there so many French expressions in this and some other Chopin stories? If I don’t understand French, how do I know what those expressions mean?
A: Many of the characters in Chopin’s stories speak French, Spanish, Creole, or all three, in addition to English. Many people with French and Spanish roots live in Louisiana, and some of them speak more than one language. Like Mark Twain and other writers of her time, Chopin was determined to be accurate in the way she recorded the speech of the people she focused on in her work. Some editions of the short stories (like the Penguin Classics editions of Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie and A Vocation and a Voice) include translations of French expressions, and Chopin usually subtly glosses such expressions in the text. Missing the meaning of a French expression is not likely to lead to a mistake in understanding a story.
Q: Am I wrong to find sexual symbolism in Chopin’s treatment of a broom in this story, especially in the last paragraph?
A: Kate Chopin is clever in her use of imagery–and in framing her closing paragraphs, witness “The Storm,” “The Story of an Hour,” “Désirée’s Baby,” and “A Respectable Woman.”
You can read more questions and answers about Kate Chopin and her work, and you can contact us with your questions.
For students and scholars
Accurate texts of “Madame Célestin’s Divorce”
The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Edited by Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969, 2006.
Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie. Edited by Bernard Koloski. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories. Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Library of America, 2002.
Books that discuss Chopin’s short stories
Fox, Heather A. Arranging Stories: Framing Social Commentary in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers. University Press of Mississippi, 2022.
Ostman, Heather. Kate Chopin and Catholicism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Ostman, Heather, and Kate O’Donoghue, eds. Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. The book contains these essays:
Koloski, Bernard. “Chopin’s Enlightened Men”: 15–27.
Walker, Rafael. “Kate Chopin and the Dilemma of Individualism”: 29–46.
Armiento, Amy Branam. “‘A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her’: The Legal Climate at the Time of ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 47–64.
Rossi, Aparecido Donizete. “The Gothic in Kate Chopin”: 65–82.
Gil, Eulalia Piñero. “The Pleasures of Music: Kate Chopin’s Artistic and Sensorial Synesthesia”: 83–100.
Ostman, Heather. “Maternity vs. Autonomy in Chopin’s ‘Regret’”: 101–15.
Merricks, Correna Catlett. “‘I’m So Happy; It Frightens Me’: Female Genealogy in the Fiction of Kate Chopin and Pauline Hopkins”: 145–58.
Sehulster, Patricia J. “American Refusals: A Continuum of ‘I Prefer Not Tos’ as Articulated in the Work of Chopin, Hawthorne, Harper, Atherton, and Dreiser”: 159–72.
Rajakumar, Mohanalakshmi and Geetha Rajeswar. “What Did She Die of? ‘The Story of an Hour’ in the Middle East Classroom”: 173–85.
O’Donoghue, Kate. “Teaching Kate Chopin Using Multimedia”: 187–202.
James Nagel. Race and Culture in New Orleans Stories: Kate Chopin, Grace King, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and George Washington Cable. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2014.
Brosman, Catharine Savage. Louisiana Creole Literature: A Historical Study. UP of Mississippi, 2013.
Wan, Xuemei. Beauty in Love and Death—An Aesthetic Reading of Kate Chopin’s Works [in Chinese]. China Social Sciences P, 2012.
Hebert-Leiter, Maria. Becoming Cajun, Becoming American: The Acadian in American Literature from Longfellow to James Lee Burke. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2009.
Gale, Robert L. Characters and Plots in the Fiction of Kate Chopin. Jefferson, N C: McFarland, 2009.
Beer, Janet, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2008. The book contains these essays:
Knights, Pamela. “Kate Chopin and the Subject of Childhood”: 44–58.
Castillo, Susan. “’Race’ and Ethnicity in Kate Chopin’s Fiction”: 59–72.
Joslin, Katherine. “Kate Chopin on Fashion in a Darwinian World”: 73–86.
Worton, Michael. “Reading Kate Chopin through Contemporary French Feminist Theory”: 105–17.
Horner, Avril. “Kate Chopin, Choice and Modernism”: 132–46.
Taylor, Helen. “Kate Chopin and Post-Colonial New Orleans”: 147–60.
Ostman, Heather, ed. Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Essays. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008. The book contains these essays:
Kornhaber, Donna, and David Kornhaber. “Stage and Status: Theatre in the Short Fiction of Kate Chopin”: 15–32.
Thrailkill, Jane F. “Chopin’s Lyrical Anodyne for the Modern Soul”: 33–52.
Johnsen, Heidi. “Kate Chopin in Vogue: Establishing a Textual Context for A Vocation and a Voice”: 53–69.
Batinovich, Garnet Ayers. “Storming the Cathedral: The Antireligious Subtext in Kate Chopin’s Works”: 73–90.
Kirby, Lisa A. “‘So the storm passed . . .’: Interrogating Race, Class, and Gender
in Chopin’s ‘At the ’Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm’”: 91–104.
Frederich, Meredith. “Extinguished Humanity: Fire in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Godmother’”: 105–18.
Beer, Janet. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Stein, Allen F. Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction. New York: Peter Lang, 2005.
Lohafer, Susan. Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics and Culture in the Short Story. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2003.
Shaker, Bonnie James. Coloring Locals: Racial Formation in Kate Chopin’s Youth’s Companion Stories. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2003.
Perrin-Chenour, Marie-Claude. Kate Chopin: Ruptures [in French]. Paris, France: Belin, 2002.
Evans, Robert C. Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction: A Critical Companion. West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill, 2001.
Koloski, Bernard, ed. Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie by Kate Chopin. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Beer, Janet. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction. New York: Macmillan–St. Martin’s, 1997.
Koloski, Bernard. Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1996.
Petry, Alice Hall, ed. Critical Essays on Kate Chopin. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996. The book contains these essays:
Pollard, Percival. “From Their Day in Court“: 67–70.
Reilly, Joseph J. “Stories by Kate Chopin”: 71–74.
Skaggs, Peggy. “The Boy’s Quest in Kate Chopin’s ‘A Vocation and a Voice’”: 129–33.
Dyer, Joyce [Coyne]. “The Restive Brute: The Symbolic Presentation of Repression and Sublimation in Kate Chopin’s ‘Fedora’”: 134–38.
Arner, Robert D. “Pride and Prejudice: Kate Chopin’s ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 139–46.
Bauer, Margaret D. “Armand Aubigny, Still Passing After All These Years: The Narrative Voice and Historical Context of ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 161–83.
Berkove, Lawrence I. “‘Acting Like Fools’: The Ill-Fated Romances of ‘At the ’Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm’”: 184–96.
Wagner-Martin, Linda. “Kate Chopin’s Fascination with Young Men”: 197–206.
Walker, Nancy A. “Her Own Story: The Woman of Letters in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction”: 218–26.
Elfenbein, Anna Shannon. Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1994.
Fick, Thomas H., and Eva Gold, guest eds. “Special Section: Kate Chopin.” Louisiana Literature: A Review of Literature and Humanities. Spring, 1994. 8–171. The special section of the journal contains these essays:
Toth, Emily. “Introduction: A New Generation Reads Kate Chopin”: 8–17.
Koloski, Bernard. “The Anthologized Chopin: Kate Chopin’s Short Stories in Yesterday’s and Today’s Anthologies”: 18–30.
Saar, Doreen Alvarez. “The Failure and Triumph of ‘The Maid of Saint Phillippe’: Chopin Rewrites American Literature for American Women”: 59–73.
Dyer, Joyce. “‘Vagabonds’: A Story without a Home”: 74–82.
Padgett, Jacqueline Olson. “Kate Chopin and the Literature of the Annunciation, with a Reading of ‘Lilacs’”: 97–107.
Day, Karen. “The ‘Elsewhere’ of Female Sexuality and Desire in Kate Chopin’s ‘A Vocation and a Voice’”: 108–17.
Cothern, Lynn. “Speech and Authorship in Kate Chopin’s ‘La Belle Zoraïde’”: 118–25.
Lundie, Catherine. “Doubly Dispossessed: Kate Chopin’s Women of Color”: 126–44.
Ellis, Nancy S. “Sonata No. 1 in Prose, the ‘Von Stoltz’: Musical Structure in an Early Work by Kate Chopin”: 145–56.
Ewell, Barbara C. “Making Places: Kate Chopin and the Art of Fiction”: 157–71.
Boren, Lynda S., and Sara deSaussure Davis (eds.), Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1992. The book contains these essays:
Toth, Emily. “Kate Chopin Thinks Back Through Her Mothers: Three Stories by Kate Chopin”: 15–25.
Bardot, Jean. “French Creole Portraits: The Chopin Family from Natchitoches Parish”: 26–35.
Thomas, Heather Kirk. “‘What Are the Prospects for the Book?’: Rewriting a Woman’s Life”: 36–57.
Black, Martha Fodaski. “The Quintessence of Chopinism”: 95–113.
Ewell, Barbara C. “Kate Chopin and the Dream of Female Selfhood”: 157–65.
Davis, Sara deSaussure. “Chopin’s Movement Toward Universal Myth”: 199–206.
Blythe, Anne M. “Kate Chopin’s ‘Charlie’”: 207–15.
Ellis, Nancy S. “Insistent Refrains and Self-Discovery: Accompanied Awakenings in Three Stories by Kate Chopin”: 216–29.
Toth, Emily, ed. A Vocation and a Voice by Kate Chopin. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Showalter, Elaine. Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing. Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 1991.
Papke, Mary E. Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton. New York: Greenwood, 1990.
Elfenbein, Anna Shannon. Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1989.
Taylor, Helen. Gender, Race, and Region in the Writings of Grace King, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and Kate Chopin. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1989.
Bonner, Thomas Jr., The Kate Chopin Companion. New York: Greenwood, 1988.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Kate Chopin. New York: Chelsea, 1987. The book contains these essays:
Ziff, Larzer. “An Abyss of Inequality”: 17–24.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. “The Fiction of Limits: ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 35–42.
Dyer, Joyce C. “Gouvernail, Kate Chopin’s Sensitive Bachelor”: 61–69.
Dyer, Joyce C. “Kate Chopin’s Sleeping Bruties”: 71–81.
Gardiner, Elaine. “‘Ripe Figs’: Kate Chopin in Miniature”: 83–87.
Ewell, Barbara C. Kate Chopin. New York: Ungar, 1986.
Skaggs, Peggy. Kate Chopin. Boston: Twayne, 1985.
Toth, Emily, ed. Regionalism and the Female Imagination. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1984.
Stein, Allen F. After the Vows Were Spoken: Marriage in American Literary Realism. Columbus: Ohio UP, 1984.
Huf, Linda. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: The Writer as Heroine in American Literature. New York: Ungar, 1983.
Christ, Carol P. Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest. Boston: Beacon, 1980.
Springer, Marlene. Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin: A Reference Guide. Boston: Hall, 1976.
Cahill, Susan. Women and Fiction: Short Stories by and about Women. New York: New American Library, 1975.
Seyersted, Per, ed. “The Storm” and Other Stories by Kate Chopin: With The Awakening. Old Westbury: Feminist P, 1974.
Freedman, Florence B., et al. Special Issue: Whitman, Chopin, and O’Faolain. WWR, 1970.
Leary, Lewis, ed. The Awakening and Other Stories by Kate Chopin. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969.
Rankin, Daniel, Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1932.
