Essay on Kate Chopin

Katherine O’Flaherty, later Kate Chopin, was born to Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1850 (Deter). Unfortunately, when Mrs. Chopin was four, her father died in a train incident leaving her under the care of three independent widows’- her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother (Deter). Mrs. Chopin’s great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville, directed her education, “giving her a taste of the culture and freedom allowed by the French that many Americans during this time disapproved of . . . through the art of storytelling” (Deter). Therefore, much of Mrs. Chopin’s success in writing about women pursuing morality, freedom, and political independence can be attributed to Victoria. Furthermore, the teachers at the St. Louis Sacred Heart Academy, a school Mrs. Chopin’s father had previously enrolled her in, “exposed her to Catholic teachings devoted to creating good wives and mothers, while also teaching independent thinking” (“Biography”).

Kate was one of three children born to her parents and the only one to live to mature years. In 1855, tragedy struck the O’Flaherty family when her father, now a director of the Pacific Railroad, was killed in a train wreck; thereafter, Kate lived in a house of many widows — her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother Charleville. In 1860, she entered the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic institution where French history, language, and culture were stressed — as they were, also, in her own household. Such an early absorption in French culture would eventually influence Chopin’s own writing, an adaptation in some ways of French forms to American themes.

Chopin became a symbol and mascot for the American Women’s Suffrage Movement (1910-1920) with the passage of the nineteenth amendment that stated: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” (First-Wave Feminism) Although Chopin was not alive while the actual women’s movement occurred, she still contributed. Her work did not receive any admiration until decades after her death around the 1950 's. (Sandra).

Kate became nationally known as a short story writer in 1894. Her second novel The Awakening was published in 1899 and it became the demise of her career. The majority of the stories written in that era had a male dominant nature. Kate, creating main character roles of women, was one of the first american writers to overcome those set society boundaries. She was a influential voice to the public since she focused solely on the problems and needs of women living in a male dominant society. The Awakening’s main character, Edna, was a woman searching for a place in society, love, and individuality. Kate impressively portrayed Edna as a free spirited woman who openly was searching for her own happiness. The public at this time believed that portraying a woman in this way was an abomination to the literary world. The continuous bad publicity of her second novel made it exceptionally hard for her to publish more stories. Kate continued writing stories after The Awakening was published. They were not revealed to the society since no publisher would publish her stories because of her negative press. On August 20th, 1904, Kate was at a St. Louis World’s Fair and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. She remained in hospital until her death on August 22nd. Kate Chopin was buried at St. Louis’s cemetery next to her son and husband. Kate Chopin was a great author who knew how to express women trying

Kate Chopin is an American writer best known for her novels and short stories. She was born February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri and she died on August 22, 1904, in St. Louis, Missouri. Kate Chopin was a feminist author. She was the author of two short stories, The Story of an Hour, and The Storm.

Because of her childhood of being raised in an all-woman household it helped mold her feministic personality and view on life with love, faith, strength, kindness, independence, and generosity (Toth, Emily). As Kate became older she met Oscar Chopin a business man who she fell in love with and later at the age of 20 years old were married. Kate’s behaviors, like smoking cigarettes and walking through the city unaccompanied frequently shocked her conservative in laws and this streak of independence however did not bother her husband. Kate later gave birth to five sons and a daughter. Motherhood quickly played into her life as well as societal restraints on women and as she lived personal experiences with this, she began to write books about women’s daily life and fictional writing on how it could be in a women’s way. In 1879, Oscar Chopin’s money lending business was in deep trouble due to financial instability. The family moved to Coulterville, Louisiana where Oscar ran a general store. Kate Chopin’s sophisticated behavior and dress style inspired gossip in the closely knit town. Her husband, worn down by financial worries, died in 1882 with malaria, leaving Kate with an outstanding debt of $12,000 and six children to raise alone. Despite everything that Kate was going through she decided to manage Oscar’s businesses

“Love and passion, marriage and independence, freedom and restraint.” These are the themes that are represented and worked with throughout Kate Chopin’s works. Kate Chopin, who was born on February 8, 1851, in St. Louis, was an American acclaimed writer of short stories and novels. She was also a poet, essayist, and a memoirist. Chopin grew up around many women; intellectual women that is. Chopin said herself that she was neither a feminist nor a suffragist; she was simply a woman who took other women intensely seriously. Chopin believed women had the ability to be strong, individual, and free-spirited. She herself reached out, in

“The famous writer Kate Chopin once said, “The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.” The Awakening, (1899). Kate Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. She was an American author of short stories and novels. She was born on February 08, 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. She died on August 22, 1904, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Written in 1898 but not published until it appeared in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969, "The Storm" has been widely regarded as Kate Chopin 's most accomplished short story. In her stories, she depicted women who experienced the power of passion that often brings them into conflict with society. Chopin realized it was her responsibility to show people the truth about life, especially woman 's life in society, as she understood it. She represented how women were struggling in the nineteenth century against the social constraint. She used her fiction to introduce her ideas to the general public. In the short story, Chopin depicts a sexual encounter between two individuals who are both married to other people.

    Kate Chopin was an extraordinary writer of the nineteenth century. Despite failure to receive positive critical response, she became one of the most powerful and controversial writers of her time. She dared to write her thoughts on topics considered radical: the institution of marriage and women's desire for social, economic, and political equality. With a focus on the reality of relationships between men and women, she draws stunning and intelligent characters in a rich and bold writing style that was not accepted because it was so far ahead of its time. She risked her reputation by creating female heroines as independent women who wish to receive sexual and emotional fulfillment,

Frederick Kolbenheyer. Dr. Kolbenheyer eventually became an important role. Because of Dr. Kolbenheyer, Kate left Catholicism, began to study science, and began to write and publish. Kate Chopin was acknowledged as a short story writer in 1894. Kate decided to make women the main character in her short stories because in the era she wrote her second novel, males were the majority of the short stories had a nature of dominate males.

Kate is very explicit in this story. "When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery." (Chopin, 122) Kate was strongly criticized by society when she presented explicit material. Kate was criticized by "The Storm", but it was "The Awakening" Kate's most criticized story. After she published it, it became impossible for Chopin to publish her later work. Chopin was censored because of her explicitness in her writing and also because at that time women were supposed to have only one sexual partner. At that time Society did not believe in feminism. Her novel was out of print for several decades, because society questioned Chopin's moral values in her writing. But all of Chopin's writings are now available.

Kate Chopin is known as one of the greatest feminist authors of her time. She grew up around independent, widowed women: her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. With her father’s death due to a train wreck, and her husband’s death from“swamp fever,” Chopin was left alone to support her six children. According to Nina Baym, the author of Chopin’s biography, influences from strong women in Chopin’s life led to why she wrote about desires, limited aspects of women’s lives, and how women began to challenge the male-dominated culture (550). A lack of men as chief figures in Chopin’s life prevented her from experiencing a tradition of submission by women to men. Additionally, many of Chopin’s works were influenced by realism and feminism.

Kate has being suffering tumultuous painful loss of family member including her husband becoming widow with a young family to support and standing alone far away of her lovely mother. But the loss of her husband doesn’t stop her, the cause effect of this loss had push her to be more powerful and stronger to be a successful as writer with an identity of feminist and demonstrating that the women have the same rights to do more that be a house wife and giving the freedom to express their self as a

Kate Chopin was a woman who struggled to meet her objectives. She never lose hope and finally she made it. Though she was frustrated by several situations, she never gave in. She left a legacy to those with comparable difficulties that problems should not terminate our dreams.

Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on February 8, 1850, to an affluent family. Chopin’s life had a great deal of trauma, losing her father in a railroad accident and her beloved grandmother dying shortly after impacted her life. Kate spent the Civil War in St. Louis, a city where residents supported both the Union and the Confederacy and where her family had slaves in the house. Chopin married at an early age of nineteen to a wealthy French man in 1870 and the two settled in New Orleans. Kate Chopin’s writing career began with her life and experiences in St. Louis, New Orleans; she wrote short stories, novels and so on. “At Fault” was Chopin’s very first novel, a book about a religious widow in love with a divorced man, which was not typical in the nineteenth century. Kate Chopin was a daring writer, she wrote many controversial stories and books about women freedom, sex, and extramarital affairs. For example, Chopin wrote short