Kate Chopin
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Kate Chopin (, also ; born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
background, such as
Zelda Fitzgerald Zelda Fitzgerald (; July 24, 1900 – March 10, 1948) was an American novelist, painter, dancer, and socialite. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she was noted for her beauty and high spirits, and was dubbed by her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald ...
, and she is one of the more frequently read and recognized writers of
Louisiana Creole Louisiana Creole ( lou, Kréyòl Lalwizyàn, links=no) is a French-based creole language spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, mostly in the state of Louisiana. It is spoken today by people who may racially identify as White, Black, mixed, and N ...
heritage. She is best known today for her 1899 novel '' The Awakening''. Of maternal French and paternal Irish descent, Chopin was born in
St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. She married and moved with her husband to
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
. They later lived in the country in
Cloutierville, Louisiana Cloutierville is an unincorporated community in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies approximately south of the city of Natchitoches on the Cane River. The community is part of the Natchitoches Micropolitan Statistical Are ...
. From 1892 to 1895, Chopin wrote short stories for both children and adults that were published in national magazines, including ''Atlantic Monthly'', ''Vogue'', ''
The Century Magazine ''The Century Magazine'' was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Associatio ...
'', and ''
The Youth's Companion ''The Youth's Companion'' (1827–1929), known in later years as simply ''The Companion—For All the Family'', was an American children's magazine that existed for over one hundred years until it finally merged with '' The American Boy'' in 1929 ...
.'' Her stories aroused controversy because of her subjects and her approach; they were condemned as immoral by some critics. Her major works were two short story collections and two novels. The collections are ''Bayou Folk'' (1894) and ''A Night in Acadie'' (1897). Her important short stories included " Désirée's Baby" (1893), a tale of
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
in
antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...
Louisiana, "
The Story of an Hour "The Story of an Hour" is a short story written by Kate Chopin on April 19, 1894. It was originally published in ''Vogue'' on December 6, 1894, as "The Dream of an Hour". It was later reprinted in ''St. Louis Life'' on January 5, 1895, as "The Sto ...
" (1894), and " The Storm" (1898). "The Storm" is a sequel to " At the Cadian Ball (1892)," which appeared in ''Bayou Folk'', her first collection of short stories. Chopin also wrote two novels: ''At Fault'' (1890) and '' The Awakening'' (1899), which are set in New Orleans and Grand Isle, respectively. The characters in her stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana, a region where she lived. Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. In 1915,
Fred Lewis Pattee Fred Lewis Pattee (March 22, 1863 – May 6, 1950) was an American author and scholar of American literature. As a professor of American literature at the Pennsylvania State University, Pattee wrote the lyrics of the Penn State Alma Mater. Pat ...
wrote "some of hopin'swork is equal to the best that has been produced in France or even in America. he displayedwhat may be described as a native aptitude for narration amounting almost to genius."


Life

Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was a successful businessman who had immigrated to the United States from Galway, Ireland. Her mother, Eliza Faris, was his second wife, and a well-connected member of the ethnic French community in St. Louis as the daughter of Athénaïse Charleville, a
Louisiana creole Louisiana Creole ( lou, Kréyòl Lalwizyàn, links=no) is a French-based creole language spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, mostly in the state of Louisiana. It is spoken today by people who may racially identify as White, Black, mixed, and N ...
of French Canadian descent. Some of Chopin's ancestors were among the early European (French) inhabitants of
Dauphin Island, Alabama Dauphin Island is an island town in Mobile County, Alabama, United States, on a barrier island of the same name, in the Gulf of Mexico. It incorporated in 1988. The population was 1,778 at the 2020 census, up from 1,238 at the 2010 census. The ...
. Kate was the third of five children, but her sisters died in infancy and her half-brothers (from her father's first marriage) died in their early 20s. They were reared Roman Catholic in the French and Irish traditions. She also became an avid reader of fairy tales, poetry, religious allegories, and classic and contemporary novels. She graduated from Sacred Heart Convent in St. Louis in 1868. At the age of five, she was sent to Sacred Heart Academy, where she learned how to handle her own money and make her own decisions, as the nuns intended. Upon her father's death, she was brought home to live with her grandmother and great-grandmother, comprising three generations of women who were widowed young and never remarried. For two years, she was tutored at home by her great-grandmother, Victoria (or Victoire) Charleville, who taught French, music, history, gossip and the need to look on life without fear. After those two years, Kate went back to Sacred Heart Academy, which her best friend and neighbor,
Kitty Garesche Katherine Milligan “Kitty” Garesché (August 24, 1850 - March 10, 1940) was the founder and headmistress of the Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, California. She was Kate Chopin's longtime friend. Biography Katherine M ...
, also attended, and where her mentor, Mary O’Meara, taught. A gifted writer of both verse and prose, O'Meara guided her student to write regularly, to judge herself critically, and to conduct herself valiantly. Nine days after Kate and Kitty's first communions in May 1861, the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
came to St. Louis. During the war, Kate's half-brother died of fever, and her great-grandmother died as well. After the war ended, Kitty and her family were banished from St. Louis for supporting the Confederacy. In St. Louis, Missouri on June 8, 1870, she married Oscar Chopin and settled with him in his home town of New Orleans. The Chopins had six children between 1871 and 1879: in order of birth, Jean Baptiste, Oscar Charles, George Francis, Frederick, Felix Andrew, and Lélia (baptized Marie Laïza). In 1879, Oscar Chopin's cotton brokerage failed. The family left the city and moved to Cloutierville in south
Natchitoches Parish Natchitoches Parish (french: Paroisse des Natchitoches or ) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 39,566. The parish seat is Natchitoches. The parish was formed in 1805. The Natchito ...
to manage several small plantations and a general store] They became active in the community, where Chopin found, in the local creole culture, much material for her future writing. When Oscar Chopin died in 1882, he left Kate $42,000 in debt (approximately $ in ). Emily Toth stated "for a while the widow Kate ran his scar'sbusiness and flirted outrageously with local men; (she even engaged in a relationship with a married farmer)." Although Chopin worked to make her late husband's plantation and general store succeed, two years later she sold her Louisiana business. Her mother had implored her to move back to St. Louis, which Chopin did, with her mother's financial support. Her children gradually settled into life in the bustling city, but Chopin's mother died the following year. Chopin struggled with depression after the successive loss of her husband, her business, and her mother. Chopin's obstetrician and family friend Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer suggested that she start writing, believing that it could be therapeutic for her. He understood that writing could be a focus for her extraordinary energy as well as a source of income. By the early 1890s, Chopin's short stories, articles, and translations were appearing in periodicals, including the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'', and in various literary magazines. During a period of considerable publishing of folk tales, works in dialect, and other elements of Southern folk life, she was considered a regional writer who provided local color. Her literary qualities were overlooked. In 1899, '' The Awakening,''her second novel, was published. Some newspaper critics reviewed the novel favorably. However, the critical reception was largely negative. The critics considered the behavior of the novel's characters, especially the women – and Chopin's general treatment of female sexuality, motherhood, and marital infidelity – to be in conflict with prevailing standards of moral conduct and therefore offensive. This novel, her best-known work, is the story of a woman trapped within the confines of an oppressive society. Out of print for several decades, it was rediscovered in the 1970s, when there was a wave of new studies and appreciation of women's writings. The novel has been reprinted and now is widely available. It has been critically acclaimed for its writing quality and importance as an early feminist work of the South. Critics suggest that such works as ''The Awakening'' were scandalous and therefore not socially embraced. Chopin was discouraged by the lack of acceptance, but she continued to write, turning to the short story. In 1900, she wrote "The Gentleman from New Orleans." That same year she was listed in the first edition of ''
Marquis Who's Who Marquis Who's Who ( or ) is an American publisher of a number of directories containing short biographies. The books usually are entitled ''Who's Who in...'' followed by some subject, such as ''Who's Who in America'', ''Who's Who of American Wome ...
.'' However, she never made much money from her writing, getting by on the investments she made locally in Louisiana and St. Louis of the inheritance from her mother's estate. While visiting the St. Louis World's Fair on August 20, 1904, Chopin suffered a brain hemorrhage. She died two days later, at the age of 54. She was interred in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.


Literary themes

Kate Chopin lived in a variety of locations, based on different economies and societies. These were sources of insights and observations from which she analyzed and expressed her ideas about late 19th-century Southern American society. She was brought up by women who were primarily ethnic French. Living in areas influenced by the Louisiana Creole and Cajun cultures after she joined her husband in Louisiana, she based many of her stories and sketches on her life in Louisiana. They expressed her unusual portrayals (for the time) of women as individuals with separate wants and needs. Chopin's writing style was influenced by her admiration of the contemporary French writer
Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...
, known for his short stories: Kate Chopin is an example of a revisionist myth-maker because she revises myth more realistically about marriage and female sexuality of her time. The biggest myth Chopin focused on was the "Victorian notion of women's somewhat anemic sexuality" and "The Storm" is the best example of Kate Chopin using that myth through a character set on fulfilling her complete sexual potential. For instance, in "The Storm", portraits of women were revised by Kate Chopin to obtain consummation in roles other than marriage to evince a passionate nature considered inappropriate by conventional, patriarchal standards of Victorian America. Chopin went beyond Maupassant's technique and style to give her writing its own flavor. She had an ability to perceive life and creatively express it. She concentrated on women's lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the Southern society of the late nineteenth century. For instance, in "
The Story of an Hour "The Story of an Hour" is a short story written by Kate Chopin on April 19, 1894. It was originally published in ''Vogue'' on December 6, 1894, as "The Dream of an Hour". It was later reprinted in ''St. Louis Life'' on January 5, 1895, as "The Sto ...
", Mrs. Mallard allows herself time to reflect after learning of her husband's death. Instead of dreading the lonely years ahead, she stumbles upon another realization:
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
Not many writers during the mid- to late 19th century were bold enough to address subjects that Chopin addressed.
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Elizabeth Ann Fox-Genovese (May 28, 1941 – January 2, 2007) was an American historian best known for her works on women and society in the Antebellum South. A Marxist early on in her career, she later converted to Roman Catholicism and became ...
of Emory University wrote that "Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women's ability to be strong." Kate Chopin's sympathies lay with the individual in the context of his and her personal life and society. Through her stories, Chopin wrote a kind of autobiography and described her societies; she had grown up in a time when her surroundings included the
abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...
movements before the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, and their influence on
freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...
education and rights afterward, as well as the emergence of feminism. Her ideas and descriptions were not reporting, but her stories expressed the reality of her world. Chopin took strong interest in her surroundings and wrote about many of her observations. Jane Le Marquand assesses Chopin's writings as a new feminist voice, while other intellectuals recognize it as the voice of an individual who happens to be a woman. Marquand writes, "Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing the Other, the woman, with an individual identity and a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind give voice. The 'official' version of her life, that constructed by the men around her, is challenged and overthrown by the woman of the story." Chopin appeared to express her belief in the strength of women. Marquand draws from theories about creative nonfiction in terms of her work. In order for a story to be autobiographical, or even biographical, Marquand writes, there has to be a nonfictional element, but more often than not the author exaggerates the truth to spark and hold interest for the readers. Kate Chopin might have been surprised to know her work has been characterized as feminist in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, just as she had been in her own time to have it described as immoral. Critics tend to regard writers as individuals with larger points of view addressed to factions in society.


Early works

Kate Chopin began her writing career with her first story published in the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''. By the early 1890s, Chopin forged a successful writing career, contributing short stories and articles to local publications and literary journals. She also initially wrote a number of short stories such as "A Point at Issue!", "A No-Account Creole", "Beyond the Bayou" which were published in various magazines. In 1890, her first novel "At Fault" about a young widow and the sexual constraints of women was published privately. The protagonist demonstrates the initial theme of Kate Chopin's works when she began writing. In 1892, Kate Chopin produced " Désirée's Baby", "Ripe Figs" and "At the 'Cadian Ball" which appeared in ''Two Tales'' that year, and eight of her other stories were published. The short story "Désirée's Baby" focuses on Kate Chopin's experience with miscegenation and communities of the Creoles of color in Louisiana. She came of age when slavery was institutionalized in St. Louis and the South. In Louisiana, there had been communities established of free people of color, especially in New Orleans, where formal arrangements were made between white men and free women of color or enslaved women for
plaçage Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descen ...
, a kind of common-law marriage. There and in the country, she lived with a society based on the history of slavery and the continuation of plantation life, to a great extent. Mixed-race people (also known as
mulattos (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...
) were numerous in New Orleans and the South. This story addresses the racism of 19th century America; persons who were visibly European-American could be threatened by the revelation of also having African ancestry. Chopin was not afraid to address such issues, which were often suppressed and intentionally ignored. Her character Armand tries to deny this reality, when he refuses to believe that he is of partial black descent, as it threatens his ideas about himself and his status in life. R. R. Foy believed that Chopin's story reached the level of great fiction, in which the only true subject is "human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the view with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it". The story can also be seen from a feminist perspective, where the white wife is unjustly made to suffer for having given birth to a partially black child. "Desiree's Baby" was first published in an 1893 issue of ''Vogue'', alongside "A Visit to Avoyelles", another of Kate Chopin's short stories, under the heading "Character Studies: The Father of Desiree's Baby – The Lover of Mentine." "A Visit to Avoyelles" typifies the local color writing that Chopin was known, and it is one of her stories that shows a couple in a completely fulfilled marriage. While Doudouce is hoping otherwise, he sees ample evidence that Mentine and Jules' marriage is a happy and fulfilling one despite the poverty-stricken circumstances that they live. In contrast, in "Desiree's Baby", which is much more controversial, due to the topic of miscegenation, portrays a marriage in trouble. The other contrasts to "A Visit to Avoyelles" are clear, but some are more subtle than others. Unlike Mentine and Jules, Armand and Desiree are rich and own slaves and a plantation. Mentine and Jules' marriage has weathered many hard times, while Armand and Desiree's falls apart at the first sign of trouble. Kate Chopin was talented at showing various sides of marriages and local people and their lives, making her writing very broad and sweeping in topic, even as she had many common themes in her work. Martha Cutter argues that Kate Chopin demonstrates feminine resistance to patriarchal society through her short stories. Cutter claims that Chopin's resistance can be traced through the timeline of her work, with Chopin becoming more and more understanding of how women can fight back suppression as time progresses. To demonstrate this, Cutter claims that Chopin's earlier stories, such as "At the 'Cadian Ball," "Wiser than a God," and "Mrs. Mobry's Reason" present women who are outright resisting, and are therefore not taken seriously, erased, or called insane. However, in Chopin's later stories, the female characters take on a different voice of resistance, one that is more "covert" and works to undermine patriarchal discourse from within. Cutter exemplifies this idea through the presentation of Chopin's works written after 1894. Cutter claims that Chopin wanted to "disrupt patriarchal discourse, without being censored by it." And to do this, Chopin tried different strategies in her writings: silent women, overly resistant women, women with a "voice covert," and women who mimic patriarchal discourse. In 1893, she wrote "Madame Célestin's Divorce," and 13 of her stories were published. In 1894, "
The Story of an Hour "The Story of an Hour" is a short story written by Kate Chopin on April 19, 1894. It was originally published in ''Vogue'' on December 6, 1894, as "The Dream of an Hour". It was later reprinted in ''St. Louis Life'' on January 5, 1895, as "The Sto ...
" and "A Respectable woman" were published by ''Vogue''. ''Bayou Folk'', a collection of 23 of Chopin's stories, was a success to Kate Chopin in 1894, published by
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. It was the first of her works to gain national attention, and it was followed by ''A Night in Acadie'' (1897), another collection of short stories.


''The Awakening''

Published in 1899, her novel ''The Awakening'' is considered ahead of its time, garnering more negative reviews than positive from contemporary sources. Chopin was discouraged by this criticism, and she turned to writing short stories almost exclusively. The female characters in ''The Awakening'' went beyond the standards of social norms of the time. The protagonist has sexual desires and questions the sanctity of motherhood. The novel explores the theme of marital infidelity from the perspective of a wife. The book was widely banned, and it fell out of print for several decades, then was republished in the 1970s. It now is considered a classic of feminist fiction. Chopin reacted to the negative events happening to her by commenting ironically:
I never dreamt of Mrs. Pontellier making such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late.
According to Bender, Chopin was intrigued by Darwin's ''
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biolo ...
''. Although she agreed with the processes of evolution, Chopin however quarreled with Darwin's theory of sexual selection and the female's role, which can be exemplified in ''The Awakening'', in which Bender argues that Chopin references ''The Descent of Man''. In his essay, Darwin suggests female inferiority and says that males had "gained the power of selection." Bender argues that in her writing, Chopin presented women characters that had selective power based on their own sexual desires, not the want of reproduction or love. Bender argues this idea through the examples of Edna Pontellier in ''The Awakening,'' Mrs. Baroda in "A Respectable Woman," and Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour." Martha Cutter's article "The Search for a Feminine Voice in the Works of Kate Chopin" analyzes the female characters in many of Chopin's stories. Cutter argues that Chopin's opinion of women as being "the invisible and unheard sex" is exemplified through the characterization of Edna in ''The Awakening''. Cutter argues that Chopin's writing was shocking due to its sexual identity and articulation of feminine desire. According to Cutter, Chopin's stories disrupt patriarchal norms. Today, ''The Awakening'' is said to be one of the five top favorite novels in literature courses all over America.


Reception and legacy


Legacy

Kate Chopin has been credited by some as a pioneer of the early feminist movement despite not achieving any literary rewards for her works.


Critical reception

Kate Chopin wrote the majority of her short stories and novels from 1889 to 1904. Altogether, Chopin wrote about 100short stories or novels during her time as a fiction writer; her short stories were published in a number of local newspapers including the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''. A large number of her short stories were published in national magazines,such as ''
Youth's Companion ''The Youth's Companion'' (1827–1929), known in later years as simply ''The Companion—For All the Family'', was an American children's magazine that existed for over one hundred years until it finally merged with ''The American Boy'' in 1929. ...
'' and ''
Harper's Young People ''Harper's Young People'' was an American children's magazine between 1879 and 1899. The first issue appeared in the fall of 1879. It was published by Harper & Brothers. It was Harper's fourth magazine to be established, after '' Harper's Magazine ...
''. ''Bayou Folk'' was well-reviewed, with Chopin's writing about how she had seen 100 press notices about it. Those stories were published in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
''. People particularly liked how she used local dialects to give her characters a more authentic and relatable feel. She also published two novels: ''At Fault'' and ''The Awakening''. Her novels were not well-received initially, compared to her short stories. Her 1899 novel ''The Awakening'' was considered to be immoral due to the overt themes of female sexuality, as well as the female protagonist's constantly rebuking gender roles and norms. There have been rumors that the novel originally was banned, which have been disproved. Local and national newspapers published mixed reviews of Chopin's novel with one calling it "poison" and "unpleasant", going on to say it was "too strong a drink for moral babes", while another newspaper published a review calling the novel, "A St. Louis Woman Who Has Turned Fame Into Literature." The majority of the early reviews for ''The Awakening'' were largely negative. Emily Toth, one of Chopin's most well known biographers, thought she had gone too far with this novel. She argued that the protagonist Edna's blatant sensuality was too much for the male gatekeepers. So much so that publication of her next novel was cancelled. The poet
Orrick Johns Orrick Glenday Johns (June 2, 1887 – July 8, 1946) was an American poet and playwright. He was one of the earliest modernist free-verse poets in Greenwich Village in 1913-1915 and associated with the artist's colony at Grantwood, New Jerse ...
was at least one strong advocate of Chopin and ''The Awakening.'' "An influential modernist poet and progressive journalist originally from St. Louis who was popular in Greenwich Village literary circles," in 1911 he wrote in Reedy's Mirror: “To one who has read her as a boy and come back to her again with powers of appreciation more subtly developed, she breathes the magic of a whole chapter in his life.” "... edible evidence exists that Johns shared his positive views of Chopin with his literary peers, a tight-knit group that included feminist writers Susan Glaspell and Edith Summers Kelley..." Through Johns's personal friendship with Kelley and his fierce advocacy for ''The Awakening'', it has been argued that Kelley read and was influenced by ''The Awakening'', a book once thought of as a literary dead end in terms of influence on the next generation of feminist writers. Textual comparisons between specific texts in Kelly's
Weeds
' and ''The Awakening'' point toward an argument for its wider influence. Nevertheless, it wasn't until Per Seyersted, a Norwegian professor and scholar, rediscovered Chopin almost 70 years later that the general public began to really appreciate her work as essential feminist and Southern literature from the 19th century. Seyersted wrote that she "broke new ground in American Literature." According to Emily Toth, Kate Chopin's work rose in popularity and recognition during the 1970s due to themes of women venturing outside of the constraints set upon them by society, which appealed to people participating in feminist activism and the sexual revolution. She also argues that the works appealed to women in the 1960s, "a time when American women yearned to know about our feisty foremothers"." Academics and scholars began to put Chopin in the same feminist categories as Louisa May Alcott, Susan Warner, and
Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...
. Parallels between Alcott and Chopin have been drawn to point out how both authors wrote about women who departed from their traditional roles by dreaming of or striving for independence and individual freedoms, also described as a dramatization of a woman's struggle for selfhood. A reviewer for ''
Choice Reviews Choice is a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). It includes the magazine ''Choice'' as well as other products including the ''Choice Reviews'' database. The magazine was established in 1964. It is cons ...
'' stated that it was ultimately a struggle doomed to failure because the patriarchal conventions of her society restricted her freedom. Karen Simons felt that this failed struggle was perfectly captured by the ending of the novel, where Edna Pontellier ends her life due to her realization that she cannot truly be both the traditional mother and have a sense of herself as an individual at the same time.


Representation in other media

Louisiana Public Broadcasting, under president Beth Courtney, produced ''Kate Chopin: A Reawakening'', a documentary on Chopin's life. In the penultimate episode of the first season of HBO's '' Treme,'' set in New Orleans, the teacher Creighton (played by
John Goodman John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He gained national fame for his role as the family patriarch Dan Conner in the American Broadcasting Company, ABC comedy series ''Roseanne'' (1988–1997; 2018), for which he rec ...
) assigns Kate Chopin's ''The Awakening'' to his freshmen and warns them:
I want you to take your time with it," he cautions. "Pay attention to the language itself. The ideas. Don't think in terms of a beginning and an end. Because unlike some plot-driven entertainments, there is no closure in real life. Not really.


Works

* "Bayou Folk
Read "Bayou Folk"
* "A Night in Acadie
Read "A Night in Acadie"
* " At the Cadian Ball" (1892
Read "At the Cadian Ball"
* "
The Story of an Hour "The Story of an Hour" is a short story written by Kate Chopin on April 19, 1894. It was originally published in ''Vogue'' on December 6, 1894, as "The Dream of an Hour". It was later reprinted in ''St. Louis Life'' on January 5, 1895, as "The Sto ...
" (1894
Read "The Story of an Hour"
* " Désirée's Baby" (1895
Read "Désirée's Baby"
* "Emancipation: A Life Fable
Read "Emancipation: A Life Fable"
* " The Storm" (1898
Read "The Storm"
* "
A Pair of Silk Stockings "A Pair of Silk Stockings" is an 1897 short story written by Kate Chopin. The story follows Mrs. Sommers who prefers spending a windfall on herself, rather than on her children. Plot summary Mrs. Sommers comes into the small fortune of $15. Aft ...

Read "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
* "The Locket" * "Athenaise

* "Lilacs

* "A Respectable Woman
Read "A Respectable Woman"
* "The Unexpected

* "The Kiss
Read "The Kiss"
* "Beyond the Bayou

* "An No-Account Creole
Read "An No-Account Creole"
*The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories * "Fedora" * "Regret
Read "Regret
* "Madame Célestin's Divorce

* ''At Fault'' (1890), Nixon Jones Printing Co, St. Loui
Read "At Fault"
* '' The Awakening'' (1899), H.S. Stone, Chicag
Read "The Awakening"
* " An Egyptian Cigarette" (1990)


Honors and awards

* Her home with Oscar Chopin in Cloutierville was built by Alexis Cloutier in the early part of the 19th century. In the late 20th century, the house was designated as the Kate Chopin House, a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
(NHL), because of her literary significance. The house was adapted for use as the Bayou Folk Museum. On October 1, 2008, the house was destroyed by a fire, with little left but the chimney. * In 1990, Chopin was honored with a star on the
St. Louis Walk of Fame The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors notable people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to the culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years ther ...
. * In 2012, she was commemorated with an iron bust of her head at the Writer's Corner in the
Central West End The Central West End is a neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, stretching from Midtown's western edge to Union Boulevard and bordering on Forest Park with its outstanding array of free cultural institutions. It includes the Cathedral Basilica of ...
neighborhood of St. Louis, across the street from Left Bank Books.


See also

*
Literature of Louisiana The literature of Louisiana, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Representative authors include Kate Chopin, Alcée Fortier, Ernest Gaines, Walker Percy, Anne Rice and John Kennedy Toole. History A printing press began op ...


Notes


Further reading

*"Kate O'Flaherty Chopin" (1988) ''A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography'', Vol. I, p. 176 * Koloski, Bernard (2009) ''Awakenings: The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival''. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA. * Eliot, Lorraine Nye (2002) ''The Real Kate Chopin'', Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA. * Berkove, Lawrence I (2000) "Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour'." American Literary Realism 32.2, pp. 152–158. * Toth, Emily (1999) ''Unveiling Kate Chopin''. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS.


External links

* * *
Kate Chopin
Novelist And Short Story Writer
Kate Chopin at American Literature

''Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening, PBS documentary''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chopin, Kate 1850 births 1904 deaths Writers from St. Louis American people of Irish descent American people of French descent 19th-century American businesswomen 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American novelists 19th-century American women writers American women short story writers American women novelists American Roman Catholics People from Natchitoches, Louisiana Writers from New Orleans Burials at Calvary Cemetery (St. Louis) 19th-century American short story writers Novelists from Louisiana Novelists from Missouri