Kate Chopin, born Katherine O’Flaherty (February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904), was an American author of short stories and novels. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century.
In the short story “Regret” by Kate Chopin a woman called Mamzelle Aurélie has to keep a neighbour’s four children for two weeks. Mamzelle Aurélie is an old and lonely woman. She has never had a man and lives alone on her farm with some animals and Negroes working for her. Because of a dangerous illness of her mother, the young neighbour has to leave and couldn’t take care of her children anymore. This is why Mamzelle Aurélie, who has never ever has children before, has to keep them. At the beginning she has great problems with managing those children. But after she a short period of time she starts realizing that humans need more than just food and a place to sleep at. She really starts to develop a relationship to the children. Now as the two weeks are over and the children go back to her mother she becomes very sad and starts crying.
From the start, Mamzelle Aurelie is described as “a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks” and “a determined eye”. She wears “a man’s hat”, a “blue army overcoat”, and even sometimes “top-boots”. There is no femininity in her description, nor does there appear to be any desire to become more feminine. The typical markers of femininity, in both appearance and character, appear to be missing. She is unmarried with no desire to change that fact and she finds the appearance of Odile’s children to be “unwelcome”. Aurelie is content in her world as overseer of her farm and manager of her workers. This is re-enforced by the fact that Aurelie is unmarried by choice. She had received a proposal and rejected it, meaning she is not unmarried because she was unfit; she is unmarried because she wants to be that way.
Aurelie had experienced a part of life that she had shut herself out from and would never be able to have. Until she experienced the life and vibrancy children could bring to a household, she had not realized what she was missing. This revelation does not completely change Aurelie, indeed, when she cries she does so “like a man, with sobs that seemed to tear her very soul”, but she does begin to regret the choices she has made.
“Regret” begins with Aurelie, a 50 year old, unmarried woman who runs an entire farm and manages her workforce without any desire or need for outside assistance or even contact. When she is tasked with watching her neighbor’s children, a change occurs in Aurelie. She is forced to play a feminine role, breaking out her aprons, sewing, and telling the children stories so they can fall asleep. Aurelie is softened to the point where she cries when the children leave because she has realized what she has missed by remaining unmarried, and carries a regret in her heart.
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