Kate Chopin

"I saw a woman
sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life
stood before her, and held in each hand a gift?in the
one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the
woman, "Choose!"
And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!"
And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst
said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask
for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to

thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall return.

In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand."

I heard the woman laugh in her sleep."

-Olive Schreiner, "Life's Gifts"

Kate Chopin wrote this crazy ridiculous short story that I'm a little obsessed with. It's not even the story (The Storm, by the way) which is a little on the explicit side, it's more the conversation it started. The fact that women were afraid to talk about and essentially believed to have zero intimate feelings at all is bizarre to me. Now they sure aren't afraid to paste it on every billboard. Maybe we should have stayed in that period?? Or maybe we should just all learn a lesson of moderation in how much we paste all over the internet?

Anyway, doing a paper on the story and looking up all this critical conversation is super interesting. I found this quote and fell in love with it. It is life who gives her the choice (God) then says she chooses wisely 'freedom'. To have freedom is to be able to choose love for one's self and not have it thrust upon them or forced or convinced or taken away or laughed at. We must have freedom to choose before we can have love for our fellow man.