# Mrs. Baroda — Short Fiction character guide

> Mrs. Baroda in Short Fiction by Kate Chopin.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** A Respectable Woman Mrs. Baroda

**First appearance:** 0053-a-respectable-woman

## Snapshot

A gracious, self-possessed wife whose carefully ordered marriage is unsettled by an attraction she cannot name and will not act on.

## Who they are

Mrs. Baroda runs her plantation household with ease and entertains her husband's guests with practiced charm, until one visitor—a blunt, unpolished friend of her husband's—refuses to fit her expectations. She finds herself drawn to him in a way that confuses and shames her, and she flees to the city rather than sit with the feeling. Her struggle between propriety and desire is the quiet center of the story, and her return home is its unresolved question.

## In the story

### [A Respectable Woman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se/chapters/a-respectable-woman)

The protagonist, a respectable married woman who experiences a powerful, confusing attraction to her husband's friend Gouvernail, which she suppresses.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se/characters/mrs_baroda
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_33_se/characters