Comparing Gilded Six-Bits And A Respectable Women

The stories “The Gilded Six-bits” and "A Respectable Women” are interesting, and both of these authors Hurston and Chopin portray a theme through the characters. These short stories are focused on the infidelity of love, but in both stories the idea of love is shown in different ways. The authors show and tell us different things throughout the characters in the story. While “A Respectable Woman” and “The Gilded Six- Bits” unfold in different settings and feature different characters, both explore the themes of how love can be shown in different ways, demonstrating how foreshadowing, symbolism and other literary elements serve as a guide to showing how the story portrays how fake love can be.

First, in both stories the authors show the literary

In both stories, the author uses symbols to show how love is portrayed in the short stories. First, in the story The Gilded Six-bits, the author uses the title to carry the story. A gilded six bit is a fake gold coin, but also the relationship between Joe and Missie May is gilded. The author showed this when Joe taunted Missie and placed the coin under her pillow to represent the loss of their marriage. In the text it says, “but the next day, as she joyfully made up their bed, beneath her pillow she found the piece of money with the bit of chain attached” (Hurston 734). Also to build on this piece of evidence it says, “fifty cents for her love.As if to say he could pay as well as Slemmons” (Hurston 734). This shows that Joe left the coin as a symbol for Missie, basically showing that he can pay for her. Also in the story by Kate Chopin, she used symbols to show love in a different way. In the story, Gouvernail brings Mrs.Baroda a white scarf in request of her husband to symbolize their marriage and her role as a wife. For example, “your husband told me to bring this to you, Mrs. Baroda, “he said, handing her a filmy, white scarf which she sometimes enveloped her head and shoulders” (Chopin 2). Wearing the scarf on her head and shoulders represented that she was a wife and a bride throughout this story. In the story, she left the scarf on her lap when it was brought to her by Gouvernail because she knew she was not honoring her