# Kate — Short Fiction character guide

> Kate in Short Fiction by Daphne du Maurier.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0003-the-lover

## Snapshot

A wife who gardens and scrapes up local acquaintances in a bungalow by the sea, then finds her marriage collapsing into jealousy and her husband's betrayal.

## Who they are

Kate makes a life out of a bungalow facing the sea and a garden she tends, but the petty club life and her husband's restlessness wear the marriage thin until she begins to make scenes of jealousy over nothing. When she discovers his affair with a young hotel guest named Nan, she does not crumble — she gathers an energy he lacks and threatens a scandal. Her refusal to be merely the wronged wife is what forces the story's reckoning.

## Relationships

### [The Woman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/characters/the_woman)

_rivalry_

Kate and The Woman are likely romantic rivals or antagonists, given the narrator's divided attention.

## In the story

### [A Man of Straw](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/chapters/a-man-of-straw)

Marlow's wife; described as older, unattractive, jealous, and eventually pregnant; Marlow forces her to go back to her mother.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/characters/kate
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_12_se/characters