Mobility and Autonomy: Chopin’s Women Characters Around Town

This chapter extends the discussion of women’s urban mobility as we turn to three exemplary Chopin stories that feature women who travel from the country—the plantation, specifically—to the city of New Orleans. Her stories “Charlie” (written in 1900), “Athénaïse” (1895, published in 1896), and “A Respectable Woman” (1894), demonstrate several instances in which women characters come of age—mentally, emotionally, or physically—a process enabled by their movement across the boundaries of the city. In each instance, the female characters in these stories are already depicted as independent-minded—or in the examples of “Charlie” and “Athénaïse,” headstrong to the point of near rebellion. Common among several Chopin stories, these characters are loved and encouraged to varying degrees by supportive, often wise and insightful men. This doesn’t mean that the characters necessarily appreciate the support or recognize it as such in the moment, but in each story, the women—Charlie, Athénaïse, and Mrs. Baroda, respectively—reach a deeper understanding of themselves as they exercise choice and free will, facilitated by their sojourns to New Orleans.