The four females in the stories read share a common charactieristic, inner conflicts, the psychology and the mental characteristics are often shown throughout the stories. Kate Chopin wrote her stories after her husband´s death and that might have had an strong influenced and the way she incuded self conflicts on her principal characters. As we can see in "The Story of an Hour" she is fighting against her heart disesase but at the same time she is showing her joy of independance and her revelation shown through nature, on the other hand in "A Pair of Silk Stockings" she is independant, which is also commonly used in her stories, but she is dealing with her financial problem and her conflict of not being part of the "welll-dressed society" that´s why she uses all the money on herself to fullfill the desire of the first time in many years. Also in Desireés baby the main character has a problem, Armand tells her to leave the house because the baby was different, we can see mysogeny and racism. Finally La Folle had a mania, she couldnt pass the Bayou, just at the moment when her little boy was in danger but at the end she gets over it and fights against it. As it can be seen that all are ordinary women and are constantly facing their own inner conflicts. Usually most of this characters reach beyond society and what it dictates, and the conclusion of the story is the understanding of their own personal desires. They end with a king of self-realization and accomplishment of their most deep fears and desires.

Given Chopin's focus on the lives of women, how does she characterize the men in her stories?

Kate Chopin is stated to be a feminist, but for the time and context analysed in nowadays maters she was just criticizing inequality, men had far more rights that women, and she thought this was an injustice, this being said in all her stories (the ones we have read) make characters are manly, strong, they lead the house and are the ones who make decisions, but this was the actual role of the man at that given time, they could be suffocating and freedom takers as we saw in "story of an hour", the male reference character was so oppressive than when miss Mallard found out her husband wasn't dead she died along with her long for freedom, the author is merely representing men as they actually where, as she observed them at her time. She also doted how men followed social status too, in the story " beyond the bayou" the young Cheri stopped receiving fiscal affection from La Folle because he was already a "man" at age ten, he already had a fire weapon and could have easily taken another persons live, he was a full responsible adult at age ten, , so the author doesn't criticize men, she describes them as they are and criticizes society as a whole.

In four of kate Chopin stories we have read, the autonomy and independence are present in all of them, first the women have to faced problems of many kinds and have to lead with the norms, that are impose by society, economy, men or by her own psychology. In the case of "A story of an hour" the women expirience a feeling of freedom against her husband and she realized that she could be autonomous without him. In "A pair of silk stockings" the women is given independence to use her money in the way she decide. In "Desiree's Baby" the women is against society and against racism a very important fact during that time. And in "Beyong the Bayou" she is kind of crazy and need to struggle with a mental disorder. During the time Kate Chopin lived the women have many restrictions and Chopin want to express that women can have autonomy and independence of their own tasks and life.

Question 2 Kate Chopin's characters face problems which lead them to gain autonomy and independence in their own life. Firstly, in a Pair of Silk Stockings, Mrs. Sommers acts independently, the only thing that guide her actions is a "mechanical impulse" which freed her of her responsibilities. She takes her own decisions, but Chopin also shows how this sense of independence might be very ephemeral and just a temporary satisfaction. In Beyond the Bayou, La Folle discovers the outside world, which was previously unknown for her, this means an act of autonomy and conquest of previous fears. Also, in The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard, realizes that her life was going to be completely different without her husband, this would gave her a sense of independence and autonomy, she would be free, totally free, in body and soul. She was going to be able to decide by herself, and was going to regain autonomy. To conclude, Chopin's characters gain autonomy and independence by facing intimate problems, which make them realize their personal strength to gain independence.

Throughout Kate Chopin's short stories read in class, the Old South is portrayed as a conservative, agricultural and racist territory in the United States. Nonetheless, Chopin introduces key progressive figures in this context to contrast with the realistic southern dynamics. Firstly, in "Desiree's Baby" the author describes a type of lifestyle in the Deep South. She portrays Armand as a conservative chauvinistic man who dominates all house affairs, showing male's central role in southern society. Racism is also discussed, especially when Chopin limns the black race as that "cursed with the brand of slavery", clearly expressing black's demise. Finally, the fact the story takes place in a plantation realistically portrays the heavy agricultural southern United States. In the other stories, Kate Chopin describes similar dynamics, though key figures, such as Mrs. Sommers, in "A Pair of Silk Stockings" represent the progressive character developing in the south and the strive for women (and men in general) to change the current ideology. Same is the case of Mrs. Mallard in "Story of an Hour", who claims to be free from the implied husband's oppression, which can be described by the story's tone as something not unusual. Finally in "Beyond the Bayou", the author implements 'La Folle' as a character who can conquest her fears, implying that women, too, could go pass the boundaries imposed by society. Overall, the conservative ideology is ever present in Chopin's stories, which mostly take place in the agricultural south, where racial and sexual discrimination is exposed as common. Furthermore, Chopin most realistically represents the South by using common slangs and abbreviations used in those territories. Like her contemporary, Mark Twain, the use of French words, for instance, mixed with other slangs and behavior, becomes the way in which Kate Chopin most accurately represents the Old American South.