Lilacs

by Kate Chopin, Liza Ross (Narrator)

“Lilacs” is Kate Chopin’s short story about a Parisian performer who seeks respite from her city life by retreating each spring to the convent where she lived as a girl.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, 19th Century

1 pages, Audible Audio

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Kate Chopin was an American author whose fiction grew out of the complex cultures and contradictions of Louisiana life, and she gradually became one of the most distinctive voices in nineteenth century literature. Raised in a household shaped by strong women of French and Irish heritage, she developed an early love for books and storytelling, and that immersion in language later shaped the quiet precision of her prose. After marrying and moving to New Orleans, then later to the small community of Cloutierville, she absorbed the rhythms, customs, and tensions of Creole and Cajun society, finding in its people the material that would feed both her sympathy and her sharp observational eye. When personal loss left her searching for direction, she began writing with the encouragement of a family friend, discovering not only a therapeutic outlet but a genuine vocation. Within a few years, her stories appeared in major magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, and The Century, where readers encountered her local-color sketches, her portrayals of women navigating desire and constraint, and her nuanced depictions of life in the American South. She published two story collections, Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, introducing characters whose emotional lives were depicted with unusual honesty. Her short fiction often explored subjects others avoided, including interracial relationships, female autonomy, and the quiet but powerful inner conflicts of everyday people. That same unflinching quality shaped The Awakening, the novel that would later become her most celebrated work. At the time of its publication, however, its frank treatment of a married woman’s emotional and sensual awakening unsettled many critics, who judged it harshly, yet Chopin continued to write stories that revealed her commitment to portraying women as fully human, with desires and ambitions that stretched beyond the confines of convention. She admired the psychological clarity of Guy de Maupassant, but she pushed beyond his influence to craft a voice that was unmistakably her own, direct yet lyrical, and deeply attuned to the inner lives of her characters. Though some of her contemporaries viewed her themes as daring or even improper, others recognized her narrative skill, and within a decade of her passing she was already being described as a writer of remarkable talent. Her rediscovery in the twentieth century led readers to appreciate how modern her concerns truly were: the struggle for selfhood, the tension between social expectations and private longing, and the resilience of women seeking lives that felt authentically theirs. Today, her stories and novels are widely read, admired for their clarity, emotional intelligence, and the boldness with which they illuminate the complexities of human experience.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Every so often I randomly turn the pages of my Kate Chopin reader and read whatever story I land on. Loved this one, how the smell of lilacs reminds a woman of the convent she lived in as a child, and she flees her life to spend two weeks in the convent. She is always welcomes with open arms until one day she is turned away.

[Yinzadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Included in Classic Womens Short Stories.

[Sneeple Gloobert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Chopin, you cannot keep lulling me into a false sense of security.

Beautiful prose as usual for Chopin. The imagery is so strong in this story, I'll think about it forever. The themes are perfectly out of reach; there are multiple conclusions a person can come to. Once again, Chopin proves that her work is the literary equivalent of taking an Uber drive down a pretty, scenic road before the driver suddenly swerves into oncoming traffic.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scent triggers powerful memories that annually prompt the main character to escape her modern life in Paris to find refuge in a countryside convent where she spent time as a child, until one year she is abruptly turned away. This short story raises questions about the nature of sisterhood among women, the tension between virtue and uncharitable judgement, and the possibilities of redemption.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it two times and still feel like I caught only half of it's meaning. Nevertheless, a very good read.

[alba · Rating 3 out of 5]

i don't blame her i would also run away to a convent once a year to be with my life long crush

read on collection «Amigas». Relatos de amor entre mujeres, del siglo XVIII al XX

[Nelson Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet again, Chopin disses the church. Chopin uses the church as this unprogressive, dull society full of old people. Especially with the last scene, the “sweeping of the lilacs off the front steps” was a proclamation that the Church hates cultural change. Lilacs symbolize her sweet freedom that soon turns sour and undesirable for those in the church who excommunicates Adrienne.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this for school along with 8 other of Chopin’s short stories im only counting this one because i also wrote a 4 page essay on it. I did like it, i think it is definitely gay and i would read it as a full book if it existed.

[Lisandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,3 estrelas

[Sofia Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

[Joshua Tate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Transported to a serene world of meadows, lilacs and joyous women only to be shafted by the ending. Left pondering on the relationship between Sister Agathe and the performer