“The Storm” is Kate Chopin’s short story about a moment of passionate sex. It is the sequel to “At the ’Cadian Ball,” written six years earlier. It was not published in Chopin’s lifetime but is today one of her most popular works.
By the Editors of KateChopin.org
Read the story online
Characters
Time and place
Themes
When the story was written and published
What critics and scholars say
Questions and answers
Accurate texts
New All of Kate Chopin’s short stories in Spanish
Articles and book chapters about the story
Books that discuss Chopin’s short stories
Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” 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 these accurate printed texts.
“The Storm” characters
- Calixta: she appears also in Chopin’s “At the ‘Cadian Ball”
- Bobinôt: husband of Calixta and father of Bibi. Bobinôt also appears in “At the ‘Cadian Ball”
- Bibi: four-year-old son of Calixta and Bobinôt
- Alcée Laballière: he and his brothers Didier and Alphonse appear in several Chopin stories. Like Calixta and Bobinôt, Alcée appears in “At the ‘Cadian Ball”
“The Storm” time and place
The story is set in the late nineteenth century at Friedheimer’s store in Louisiana, and at the nearby house of Calixta and Bobinôt.
“The Storm” themes
Unlike most of Kate Chopin’s short stories and both her novels, this story was not published until the 1960s, many years after it was written. Apparently Chopin did not submit it to magazines because she understood that no editor at the time would publish a work as sexually explicit as this one. Per Seyersted, a Chopin biographer, writes that “sex in this story is a force as strong, inevitable, and natural as the Louisiana storm which ignites it.” The conclusion of the story, Seyersted adds, is ambiguous, because Chopin “covers only one day and one storm and does not exclude the possibility of later misery. The emphasis is on the momentary joy of the amoral cosmic force.”
In this story, Seyersted says, Kate Chopin “was not interested in the immoral in itself, but in life as it comes, in what she saw as natural–or certainly inevitable–expressions of universal Eros, inside or outside of marriage. She focuses here on sexuality as such, and to her, it is neither frantic nor base, but as ‘healthy’ and beautiful as life itself.”
Other readers, scholars, and critics have found a host of themes, ideas, and subjects to write about in this story. There are further details in some of the questions and answers below. You can check our lists of books, articles, and dissertations about Chopin at other places on this site. And you can read about finding themes in Kate Chopin’s stories and novels on our Themes page.
When Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” was written and published
The story was composed on July 19, 1898. It was first published in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969.
You can find out when Kate Chopin wrote each of her short stories and when and where each was first published.
What critics and scholars say about “The Storm”
Some critics and scholars focus on issues of gender, ethnicity, or social class. A few see the story as immoral and the two lovers as sinners. Many consider “The Storm” an essential work.
“Through this story, Chopin seems to be arguing for human passion and desire, but not at the cost of marriage. After all, the two couples end where they began—happily married. Furthermore, Calixta’s concerns for Bobinôt’s physical dryness and Clarisse’s continued devotion to her husband prove the solidity of the marriages that are tested in this story.” Maria Herbert-Leiter
“From first chapter to last, ‘The Storm,’ is pervaded by ambiguity. The plot is clear enough, but little else is. That within the compass of the story’s five pages Chopin offers, to varying degrees, the points of view of five different characters suggests no implicit consensus of vision but only a sense of fragmentation, a sense perhaps that with any significant situation points of view are as numerous as those involved and, further, that with many pieces of significant fiction readings are as numerous as readers.” Allen Stein
Although “At the ’Cadian Ball” and “The Storm” portray controversial relationships in a sympathetic manner, Chopin uses irony in the narration to comment on them from a moral standpoint. “An underappreciated part of Chopin’s extraordinary skill is her ability to subtly undercut bold but morally untenable positions that she has sympathetically represented.” Lawrence Berkove
Margot Sempreora re-examines the impact translating Guy de Maupassant’s stories had on Chopin’s work and demonstrates the transformation in her writing through the earlier short story “At the ’Cadian Ball” and her post-translation sequel “The Storm.” She concludes that the character of Calixta demonstrates Chopin’s liberation through language.
“New evidence seems to show that Chopin was indeed a creative author, but perhaps had more help than we imagined. The evidence seems to show that the bulk of this one short story is copied from a non-fiction source— an 1891 article by Alcée Fortier called ‘The Acadians of Louisiana and Their Dialect.’” Geraldine Seay
You can search the titles in our extensive databases of books and articles for more information about this short story—information in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Questions and answers about “The Storm”
Q: The story’s title says it is “A Sequel to ‘The ‘Cadian Ball.'” Does “The Storm” stand by itself or does it need to be read with the earlier story?
A: It stands by itself, but some scholars have argued that Chopin obviously intended for “The Storm” to be read with “At the ‘Cadian Ball” and that resonance is lost when they are separated (see one of the questions below). The earlier story describes how Calixta came to marry Bobinôt and how Alcée came to marry his wife. Some anthologies print “The Storm” alone. Many print the two stories together.
Q: Isn’t the phrasing of “The Storm” sexually explicit for something written in the 1890s?
A: Yes, the phrasing is way beyond what any respectable American magazine, even a comparatively advanced magazine like Vogue (in which Kate Chopin published nineteen stories), would have printed at the time. From everything we can tell, Chopin did not try to send “The Storm” out to editors. The story was not published until 1969, sixty-five years after Chopin’s death.
Q: So readers at the time were uncomfortable about explicit sex in short stories?
A: By the standards of most twenty-first-century American or European magazine readers, yes. But unlike today’s countless magazines often selling to small, closely-focused segments of the population, American national magazines in the late nineteenth century usually appealed to broader, more heterogeneous audiences. Many, if not most, magazines of the time were viewed by children as well as adults, so editors needed to keep in mind the tastes and preferences of the people who bought their publications and, perhaps, shared them with their families. Editors also were aware of the United States Comstock Act of 1873, which focused on “the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.”
Q: What kind of relationship exists between Calixta and Alcée? What can you infer from their past?
A: Much depends on whether you think of the two as characters who exist only in “The Storm” or if you see them as characters who exist also in “At The ‘Cadian Ball.” Assuming you are looking at both stories: as we explain on the page for the earlier story, Alcée and his wife Clarisse are Creoles, descendants of French settlers in Louisiana. Calixta and her husband Bobinôt are Acadians, descendants of French-American exiles from Acadia, Nova Scotia, who were driven from their homes by the British in 1755. Most of the Creoles in Kate Chopin’s stories are comparatively wealthy, usually landowners or merchants. Most of the Acadians (or ‘Cajuns) in the stories are much poorer, living off the land, farming or fishing or working for the Creoles.
So on the basis of the two stories together, you could describe Calixta as coming from a different social class than Alcée, and you could say that it’s in good part because of that difference in class that Calixta and Alcée are married to other people. And you could add that, unlike anyone else in either story, Calixta comes in part also from a Spanish-speaking cultural background (her mother is Cuban) and so, as Kate Chopin presents her, she has different ways of behaving, more sensual ways of expressing her sexuality–which is partly why she is so attractive for both Alcée and Bobinôt. As everyone in the earlier story understands, she’s not like the other Acadian girls.
In brief, Calixta is an Acadian influenced by Cuban culture who had been attracted to Alcée–and he to her–long before either of them was married (they had passionate moments together one summer in Assumption Parish, moments that apparently scandalized some people). Calixta married Bobinôt, the earlier story suggests, because Alcée was not available as a marriage partner–at least partly because his Creole family, and certainly Clarisse, think of him as coming from a comparatively higher social class.
Lisa A Kirby discusses this subject at length in Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century.
Q: I’ve read an article about “The Storm” that suggests Calixta has some African-American blood. Is that right?
A: No. Her mother is Cuban. Everyone in the community thinks of her as Acadian with some Spanish blood. As the prequel to this story phrases it, “Any one who is white may go to a ‘Cadian ball, but he must pay for his lemonade, his coffee and chicken gumbo. And he must behave himself like a ‘Cadian.”
But the treatment of race, ethnicity, and social classes in Kate Chopin’s works is sometimes complex and is worth considering carefully. Maria Herbert-Leiter, Lisa A Kirby, Anna Shannon Elfenbein, Helen Taylor, and Bonnie James Shaker, among others, offer extensive discussions of the topic.
Q: Would you describe what looks to me like an odd sort of connection between Chopin’s short story “A Shameful Affair” and her stories “At The ‘Cadian Ball” and “The Storm”?
A: Perhaps it’s not so odd a connection. “A Shameful Affair” is an earlier Chopin story, is set in Missouri rather than in Louisiana, and does not involve Creole or Acadian society. But in some ways it’s similar to Chopin’s two more famous works in its focus on a man and woman attracted to each other but restrained by the sexual norms of the times.
Mildred and Fred are wealthy, educated people who, because of late nineteenth-century norms, keep their sexual feelings towards others, especially others of their own social class, under very tight control. It was, however, common for an upper-class man to have a “fling,” as Chopin calls it in “At the ‘Cadian Ball,” with a woman of a lower social class. An upper-class woman would not likely have a fling with a lower-class man.
But Chopin in this story reverses those male/female roles. Until Mildred gets the letter from her friend (after she and Fred kiss) she does not realize that Fred is from her own class. But he’s a handsome, sexually powerful guy, and it’s nice–and, she thinks, safe–for her to flirt a little with him.
Fred understands who Mildred is (it’s not clear if he realizes that she does not know who he is), but he’s on the farm precisely to get away from the norms of his class. He likes being a working-class guy at times, and he avoids contact with Mildred. But when she seeks him out him at the river, he passionately kisses her. Then, remembering himself, he flees, like Alcée Laballière flees from Calixta in Assumption.
Articles by Joyce Dyer and Martin Simpson may be helpful for you.
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 “The Storm”
The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Edited by Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969, 2006.
Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories. Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Library of America, 2002.
The Awakening and Selected Stories. Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Penguin, 1984.
Articles and book chapters about “The Storm”
Some of the articles listed here may be available online through university or public libraries.
Bergmann, Ina. “Kate Chopin (1850–1904).” Handbook of the American Short Story, edited by Erik Redling and Oliver Scheiding, Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2022, pp. 209–25.
Coenen-Rowe, Lewis. “The Storm.” Textual Practice, vol. 34, no. 2, Feb. 2020, pp. 185–186.
Koloski, Bernard. “Kate Chopin.” Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature, edited by Jackson Bryer, Oxford University Press, 2020 [update].
Hebert-Leiter, Maria. “The Awakening Awakened.” In Becoming Cajun, Becoming American: The Acadian in American Literature from Longfellow to James Lee Burke, 57–78. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2009.
Kirby, Lisa A. “‘So the Storm Passed…’: Interrogating Race, Class, and Gender in Chopin’s ‘At the ‘Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm’.” Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Essays. 91-104. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008.
Shaker, Bonnie James. Coloring Locals: Racial Formation in Kate Chopin’s Youth’s Companion Stories. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2003.
Cho, Ailee. “[Chopin and the Desire of Flight].” Nineteenth Century Literature in English 7 (2003): 119-134.
Stein, Allen. “The Kaleidoscope of Truth: A New Look at Chopin’s ‘The Storm.’ “ American Literary Realism 36 (2003): 51-64.
Seay, Geraldine H. “Kate Chopin’s Source for ‘At the Cadian Ball’.” Southern Studies 8 (1997): 37-42.
Menke, Pamela Glenn. ” ‘I Almost Live Here’: Gender and Ethnicity in The Awakening and ‘The Storm.’ ” Southern Studies 8 (1997): 73-81.
Berkove, Lawrence I. ” ‘Acting Like Fools’: The Ill-Fated Romances of ‘At the ‘Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm.’ ” Critical Essays on Kate Chopin. 184-196. New York: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Johnson, Rose M. “A Rational Pedagogy for Kate Chopin’s Passional Fiction: Using Burke’s Scene-Act Ratio to Teach ‘Story’ and ‘Storm’.” Conference of College Teachers of English Studies 60 (1996): 122-128.
Koloski, Bernard. Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction New York: Twayne, 1996.
Baker, Christopher. “Chopin’s ‘The Storm.’ ” Explicator 52 (1994): 225-26.
Koloski, Bernard. “The Anthologized Chopin: Kate Chopin’s Short Stories in Yesterday’s and Today’s Anthologies.” Louisiana Literature 11 (1994): 18-30.
Sempreora, Margot. “Kate Chopin as Translator: A Paradoxical Liberation.” Louisiana Literature 11 (1994): 83-96.
Gaude, Pamela. “Kate Chopin’s ‘the Storm’: A Study of Maupassant’s Influence.” Kate Chopin Newsletter 1.2 (1975): 1–6.
Seyersted, Per. “Introduction.” ‘The Storm’ and Other Stories by Kate Chopin: With ‘The Awakening New York: Feminist Press, 1974.
Arner, Robert D. “Kate Chopin’s Realism: ‘at the Cadian Ball’ and ‘the Storm’.” Markham Review 2.2 (1970): 1–4.
Articles about “A Shameful Affair”
Simpson, Martin. “Chopin’s ‘A Shameful Affair’.” Explicator 45 (1986): 59-60.
Dyer, Joyce. “Symbolic Setting in Kate Chopin’s ‘A Shameful Affair’.” Southern Studies 20 (1981): 447-452.
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.
