At Fault

At Fault by Kate Chopin is a feminist novel about Therese Lafirme's life as she runs her Louisiana plantation and reconciles her own loneliness with her moral reservations about a handsome, divorced businessman's marriage proposal. Excerpt: "When Jérôme Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his sudden taking off with indolent watchfulness. It was a matter of unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousand acres had been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, childless Creole widow of thirty. A bêtise of some sort might safely be looked for. But time passing, the anticipated folly failed to reveal itself; and the only wonder was that Thérèse Lafirme so successfully followed the methods of her departed husband."