Essay Comparing Gilded Six-Bits And A Respectable Woman

In Zora Neale Hurston and Kate Chopin's short stories “The Gilded Six-Bits” and “A Respectable Woman," both stories depict a woman who has an affair. The authors, being born worlds apart from one another, tell a similar story yet portray it in different lights. Hurston’s story focuses on forgiveness after betrayal, while Chopin’s depicts a woman embracing her sexual desires. How can stories with the same conflict differ from one another yet also be so similar? In Hurston's short story, she describes the couple, Joe and Missy May, as having a playful relationship with each other, and in Chopin’s story, her couple, Mrs. Baroda and Gaston additionally have a healthy relationship. Both authors showed their characters' characterization of their female main lead through their actions and dialogue throughout their stories. In both stories, the women have innate desires and suffer from internal conflict from within,

Yet the authors take vastly different approaches to the climax of their stories. At the end of one story, the audience has closure while the other is up to interpretation by the readers. In Hurston’s case, the climax is in the middle of the story when Joe walks in on Missie Mae with her affair partner, and throughout the rest of the story, Missie Mae does everything in her power to make amends with Joe. In Chopin’s story, the climax is at the very end of the story when Mrs. Borda tells her husband to invite Gouvernail over again and then promises Gaston that she will treat him very well this time around. In Hurston’s story, the aftermath is dealt with and the readers are given a clear resolution where Joe and Missie May live together as a happy family with their new born baby, but Chopin’s story leaves the audience on a cliffhanger that is up to interpretation for the readers. Leaving room for speculation in particular, does Mrs Baroda have an affair with