In the following essay excerpt, Seyersted examines Chopin's take on feminist issues in her first three stories (as well as a "A Point at Issue!") within the context of Chopin's idea of a modern female.

Kate Chopin was never a feminist in the dictionary sense of the term, that is, she never joined or supported any of the organizations through which women fought to get "political, economic, and social rights equal to those of men." Not only did she shy away from societies and issues in general, but she probably regarded the New World feminists as unrealistic when they so closely allied themselves with efforts to elevate men to their own supposedly very high level of purity; she undoubtedly concurred with the early George Sand, who felt that woman largely had the same drives as man and therefore also should have his "rights."

Though American literary permissiveness...