Skip to main content

What need is awakened in Mrs. Sommers by the pair of silk stockings, and what inner conflict does this reveal in "A Pair of Silk Stockings"?

Her desire to purchase the silk stockings for herself indicates a need in Mrs. Sommers for self-indulgence.


When Mrs. Sommers becomes "the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars," she considers for days what she will buy with the windfall she has received. In her mind she considers what is needed for the children: 



The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation.



Clearly, Mrs. Sommers has unselfish intentions, and she possesses the dutiful thinking of a mother as she prepares to take the trolley one day and make her planned purchases. However, on this day she is "a little faint and tired"; in fact, she has forgotten to eat before leaving home. So, after she enters a shop, she sits down at a counter; while resting there, her hand inadvertently brushes against something "very soothing, very pleasant to touch." She notices that her hand rests upon a pile of silk stockings that have a placard near them which advertises a price reduction. Noticing her, a young clerk asks Mrs. Sommers if she would like to look at the silk hosiery. Blushing, Mrs. Sommers inquires, "Do you think there are any eight-and-a-half among these?" and the clerk shows her several in different colors. Mrs. Sommers selects a black pair and holds them up, pretending to examine their texture. Quickly, the clerk assures her that their quality is excellent.



"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she mused aloud. "Well, I'll take this pair." She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and waited for her change and her parcel.



Once she has made this purchase, Mrs. Sommers is eager to discard her cotton stockings and wear her new silk ones. In the ladies' waiting room, she removes her old stockings and puts on her new ones. "How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh!" She revels in her indulgence momentarily. Then, she places her cotton stockings in her bag, puts on her shoes, and crosses over to the shoe department. Mrs. Sommers now fulfills her own desires as she purchases a pair of polished, pointed-tipped boots and kid gloves. 


Her change of heart is, perhaps, due to her exhaustion from years of being frugal and making personal sacrifices. Now, shopping for herself and indulging herself at a restaurant and a theater are Mrs. Sommers' escapes from her humdrum existence and her personal deprivation. In the theater,



... there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole--stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it.



Made powerless for years by her economic situation, Mrs. Sommers acts this day in feminine rebellion and delights in the small indulgences of the past.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more