Who is Colette from The Collected Stories of Colette and what is their importance?

Colette is by far the most important character in her stories. Although it is difficult to say that she represents herself accurately, she gives a uniform and convincing self-portrait that does not change, even from her very early stories to her later ones. In these stories, she is level-headed and has a strong sense of humor. When a half-crazy woman asks her repeatedly to read her own writing, Colette cannot help mocking a pretentious pattern in her speech. At the same time, she presents herself as an early feminist. While she does train her daughter to sew, she does not like to do it, and she has a hard time accepting the traditional values of the day. This is also reflected in her willingness to confront unpleasant, even taboo subjects, and place herself in unseemly situations. She is, for example, willing to visit the recent victim of an abortion, even though her friends and colleagues are not willing to associate themselves with that procedure during this time period. However, she is not infallible. For example, she does not end up going by herself to visit her colleague. Overall, Colette creates a vision of herself as an extremely curious person, one who is often drawn back into past memories and one with many friends, from whom she draws the inspiration for her stories.