Stereotypes In Kate Choplin's A Pair Of Silk Stockings

      Her children is the only thing that has consumed her mind in several years until the unexpected sum of cash shows up. Even before Mrs. Mallard starts upon her shopping spree, she prioritizes what to buy in her mind for her children, a dollar...(321). She knows exactly what to buy and how much to spend on each since she knows the value of a bargain.

In the short story “Shopping” by Joyce Oates, we experience the mother, Mrs. Dietrich, doing multiple things for her daughter, Nola, such as buying her expensive clothing. The author agrees when she writes, “...though the sweater by Sergio Valente, even ‘drastically reduced,’ is certainly not cheap. Mrs. Dietrich feels the motherly obligation to register a mild

She selfishly praised quilts as "priceless" (91) whereas she thought the same piece was old fashioned and out of style when offered to her for college. By carrying the quilts she claims to carry the heritage, however, she shuns the lifestyle of her family, which is of course a part of her heritage.

Gorgeous beading, glittering sequins, and pearly white are some of the words brides use to describe their wedding dresses. Once weddings are over, brides normally take every precaution to preserve this most expensive, treasured, and prized item. Even after years of marriage, wives fondly recall the hours spent searching for the perfect dress and playfully ponder whether the beauty still fits. However, in contrast to the typical feelings associated with a bride’s wedding dress, a close reading of James Galvin’s poem “On the Sadness of Wedding Dresses” offers a unique perspective of worn wedding dresses.

There was a time when social classes were most easily identified through material goods and possessions. Whether wealth was gained through inheritance or hard work, it was the luxury items that made the most visible and tangible statement regarding a person’s social status. Men could rely on a large house or expensive car to proclaim the success they had earned. It was much more common to see women adorned in jewels, designer clothes, and furs as symbols of her upper class status. The extravagance of a woman’s appearance was a reflection of the success of her husband, so it was natural to indulge her desire for expensive material possessions.

Once inside the store, Sylvia can no longer ignore the blinding imparity between the rich and the poor. Her discovery of an overly priced toy clown prompts her to consider what could be bought for its price: "Thirty-five dollars could buy new bunk beds for Junior and Gretchen’s boy. Thirty-five dollars and the whole household could go visit Granddaddy Nelson in the country. Thirty-five dollars would pay for the rent and the piano bill too" (605). Sylvia is forced to finally address the socioeconomic inequality that works against her while simultaneously conferring certain luxuries on the rich: "Who are these people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats? What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain’t in on it?" (605).

Kelley names articles of clothing she knows the audience is wearing at that particular time. No matter what social hierarchy the women are categorized in each of them own a pair of socks, stockings, and/or underwear. This makes a vital realization in the hearts of the women. Now the women feel guilty. All of their life they have been wearing “little beast” clothing. This creates a sense of guilt that will make the women want to rally together and abolish child labor.

Indeed, the early part of the film portrays an accurate depiction of society at the time, without overt prejudice or obsession with issues (which are dealt with in the narrative later). The society on show in DeMille's classic is one at the hands of an invasion by consumerism where, "[w]hether social activist or flapper, the `new woman' expected to function in both public and private spheres despite controversy regarding the nature of her role" . This movement came to be characterised by, "how expensive and fashionable...the garments [are] that the wife wears" . As Thorstein Veblen argues, "goods, especially clothing, were acting as a

Author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell once said, ““..... it would be interesting to find out what goes on in that moment when someone looks at you and draws all sorts of conclusions.” This is true for not only real life but also drawing a range of conclusions about a character in a book. Many people feel that classic titles such as The Odyssey and The Count of Monte Cristo create a “stereotype” for women by causing them to be “fit into a box” and therefore making them uninteresting and bland. The Scarlet Pimpernel offers a span of diversity in regards to the women in it. Each one gives the novel a little something more to give the reader multiple feelings about what they read.

In eighteenth-century American colonies, fashion functioned as a stage where people participated in contests over many types of developing issues used in the creation of our nations power through the people. In her book Kate Haulman researches and then explains how and why fashion, both as a notion and part of the changing style of personal beautification, linked gender roles/issues, social class control, business, and political development/power during a time when customary orders were instability. Haulman does this by focusing on major port cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Charleston where fashion was wired into every aspect of colonist daily lives and routines. Kate Haulman’s book covers a very creative, insightful

The author of A Pair of Silk Stockings explores female roles based on what other people believe due to stereotypes. In this short story Mrs. Sommers finds $15 which is a sizable about of money to her in New York. She and her family are on the poorer side of New York. At first Mrs. Sommers has no clue on what she should do the money she had just come to. She is thinking about her children and that they could use new skirls because she had seen a beautiful new pattern in a market window, or caps for her boys and sailor-caps for her girls (Chopin 1). She thought of them due to the fact that that is what mothers and wives do in the 1800’s, they but their children and husband before thinking of themselves. She thought back to the time when she wasn’t

Sharon Prassel, a longtime entrepreneur, is the founder of Chloe & Cody Her love of fashion and her eye for design was the driving force that led her to always dress her own three children in coordinating clothing. Today, with the children grown; “Why not my dogter too”? During a rainstorm, she came up with the idea of matching raincoats for Chloe and her and that is how Chloe & Cody was founded.

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” This quote by Oscar Wilde is relative to the actions of Mrs.Sommers, considering her children and the state in which her family lives in. In “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” by Kate Chopin, a mother of at least four children temporarily escapes the hardships of motherhood for a day and enjoys long missed extravagance. She was formerly a woman of luxury, and when she acquires a large amount of money, she decides to rediscover the world of riches. Her actions are selfish in doing so, because her family is not in a stable condition, she is a mother of several children, and she does not deserve this opulent treatment.

The late Irish poet Oscar Wilde once stated, "In the world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” This quote accurately describes human nature to the extent that man is never fully satisfied with his current possessions. In fact, most people who rely on materialistic items for happiness are typically desolated and miserable. This story is based on an archaic view on women, where women have no caste or hierarchy. The people grade women based off their looks and beauty. Money “practically makes nobility” (Shmoop). It “enables the user to pay for the high life” (Shmoop) and confine the person with luxurious items known to man. Money controls the life of people,

The curtain of the story rises, and Porter’s protagonist emerges from her bath to see that her “gold cloth” purse is no longer on the bench where she spread it out to dry the night before. As she recalls the previous evening, trying to discover when it may have gone missing, we learn that she has been robbed several times either “material[ly] or intangib[ly]”(85), but not of the purse.