Preview

Kate Chopin Autobiography

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
528 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Kate Chopin Autobiography
Autobiography of Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1850, and she was an American author of short stories and novels. Some people consider Chopin to be one of the forerunners of feminist authors in the 20th century. Her writing career started when in 1870, she married Oscar Chopin. After Oscar Chopin’s business failed in 1879, they moved to Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, where they managed several small plantations and a general store. They became active in the community, where Chopin obtained her writing inspirations for later on. Then, in 1882, Oscar Chopin died, and left Kate Chopin with a $12,000 debt. After trying to keep business alive, Kate sold the general store and moved to St. Louis with her mother. One year after that, Kate’s mother died. Filled with depression, Kate was told by her obstetrician and family friend that she should start writing, because writing would be a sort of therapy to heal her wounds, and it’d provide her with a source of income. Thus, Kate Chopin’s writing career began. At first, Kate’s writing was doing well. She was published in some magazines and was popular. In 1890 though, Kate wrote her first novel, At Fault, and this novel basically went unnoticed by the public. Then, in 1899, when Kate wrote her second book, The Awakening, she got a huge response. However, it was negative; people widely condemned it, calling it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable. Kate’s writings were influenced by Guy de Maupassant, who was a popular French writer at the time; in fact born the same year. Kate Chopin said, “I read his stories and marveled at them. Here was life, not fiction; for where were the plots, the old fashioned mechanism and stage trapping that in a vague, unthinkable way I had fancied were essential to the art of story making. Here was a man who had escaped from tradition and authority, who had entered into himself and looked out upon life through his own being and with his own eyes; and who, in a direct and simple

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The annotated bibliography of Kate Chopin’s works has only recently reached its heightened acceptance after her death. The world had a negative and condemning view of some of her short stories and essays. Kate had a prolific writing style that universally described the inner selves of men, women, and human relationships. Blatant honesty and true individualism were areas not readily to be accepted.…

    • 1204 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” Kate explores a depressed high class woman’s psychological journey and gender issues towards enlightenment and end up committing suicide as she couldn’t open up herself to anybody who could help her in the situation she was going through. The position of women in society in 19th society was limited to household activities, taking care of children, and work according to the husband to please him all the time. Edna, who is self-aware and she wants to live her life in her own way rather than dancing on tunes of her husband to fulfil his desires. The Awakening supports women to obtain independence physically, emotionally, and financially which was impossible for the women of 19th century.…

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Married with 6 children, one would certainly think that Kate Chopin was typical of her time ("Kate Chopin Biography" 1). She seemed by all accounts to be a devoted mother and wife who demurely bowed down to societies role for the woman without complaint. However, Chopin was no ordinary woman. Widowed at the age of 32, she managed to write and raise her children alone having never re-married. During these trying times, Chopin experienced personal growth and confidence as an individual; therefore, it is not surprising that Kate Chopin’s own personal awakenings inspired her to write The Awakening in 1899. This short story was met with a great deal of hostility (Bloom 119) to Chopin’s admirers and peers. Women during this time period were sheltered where family, marriage and female dependency was a way of life. In reading this short story, one can see a connection between Kate Chopin herself and Edna. Both struggled for their own identity, an identity that “undercuts the authority of male conventions” (Bloom 120). On a personal level Chopin was struggling to leave behind imprisoning…

    • 2502 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This novel began in 1897 and was completed on January 21, 1898 by Kate Chopin. It’s original title was A Solitary Soul but later it was published as The Awakening by Herbert S. Stone & Company in Chicago on April 22, 1899. By writing this novel Chopin developed some important questions regarding intellectual or moral evolution and on how people used to think back in the 1800’s. As she describes the social expectations on the individual, the role of fidelity to marriage, and some traditional sex roles in marriage. However, this novel began a national scandal for its indecency and eventually got banned from libraries. However this book might have been seen as outrageous back then but now it really is not far from the way that people see it…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kate Chopin is an author that tends to relate the books that she writes to her own life. In “The Awakening” this style of writing is very apparent. To demonstrate these many similarities I have written a type B psychoanalytical analysis of this book. “The Awakening” reflects Chopin’s life, views on life, and places she’s lived in many obvious and subtle ways.…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Kate Chopin bravely exposed an attitude of feminism to an unprepared society in her novel The Awakening. Her brilliant work of fiction was not recognized at the time because feminism had not yet become popular. Eble claimed that Chopin 's book was considered to be "Too strong a drink for moral babes and should labeled 'poison '" (75). Chopin defied societal assumptions of her time period and wrote the novel, The Awakening, using attitudes of characters in regard to gender, changes in the main character, imagery and Edna 's suicide to illustrate…

    • 2601 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history, women have been oppressed because they did not have the same rights as men. Thus, they have suffered unfair treatment such as not being able to vote, having their voices heard in the political sphere because of their gender and so on. Therefore, feminist criticism, which focuses on the women’s perspective, gradually formed and became quickly integrated into the literary works such as Kate Chopin’s short stories, “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree’s Baby”. Kate Chopin is an American author who advocated that women and men both should have right of equality and freedom. In her short story, “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin describes a young wife who has heart disease which is why her sister and…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In 1984 Kate Chopin wrote the short story ‘The Story of an Hour’. Chopin, born O’Flaherty in 1851, is considered one of the most important women in the 19th century American fiction. She is best known for her novel ‘The Awakening’. Her short stories revolve around the way women were treated in this century.…

    • 2044 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1899 Mrs.Chopin published her final novel, The Awakening, although it was widely accepted, it shocked people because of the strong leading female role. Kate Chopin had wrote this book when the feminist movement was just beginning in America, during this time in some states women were still classified as property. The Awakening is about a young woman, Edna Pontellier, who thinks about herself as a rebel and she has an affair with her husband, Léonce, cheating on him with the Alceé Arobin. During Edna’s “Awakening” she learned many things, like how to express love and compassion, and how to express herself through art. This offended a lot of people because Mrs.Chopin had written about controversial topics like feminism, during the time she wrote this the feminist movement was recently starting to…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty on February 8, 1851. She was born to Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty. Unfortunately, her father passed away when she was just five years old. “As a result, Kate Chopin lived her preteen years in a female-centered household. She lived with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother” (Tolentino 6). Most authors immerse themselves in their books. Whether a planned or subconscious action, they use their own experiences to influence their works. Kate Chopin’s household experiences, as well as, the progression of feminism, society in Louisiana, and Creole standards directly influenced her novel, The Awakening.…

    • 1460 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kate Chopin’s book The Awakening is based on the expections placed on women in society, particularly in the upper class at the turn of the 20th century. This story explains how there is more than one reason why effects on a human or thing happen. Edna Pontellier’s character shows not only the limited options of a woman, but the dangers of taking risks of unrealistic expectations of life and love. Chopin is trying to show how change can break a human.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chopin, like Edna was expected to conform to society’s standards of a submissive Creole wife. However, Chopin often “grew tired of domestic life and escaped to smoke cigarettes or take solitary walks” (“The Awakening”). While she was known to be a good wife and mother, she too, escaped the domestic housework duties of her wife role and took horseback rides through town in order to gain the attention and admiration of any man whom she passed. Chopin could be speaking out to contest to the societal expectations of gender roles and moral attitudes, but she could also be using Edna as a voice to her dissatisfaction with her own life. Despite whether she formed Edna based on her own life or she shaped Edna around what society expects, Edna was her escape route to speak out against the gender roles, and social and moral attitudes of this time period. Because women were expected to be submissive and conform to what society expected, the public disapproved and Chopin was bombarded with unfavorable literary criticism due to her depiction of the character Edna. The novel was perceived as “vulgar, unwholesome, unholy and a misappropriation of Chopin's exceptional literary talent” (“Kate”). Ultimately, Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening, did not become accepted as a good piece of literary fiction until roughly the 1960’s when the 1960’s to 1970’s feminist movement took…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kate Chopin is a strong-willed independent woman who writes about women with similar characteristics. Specifically in The Awakening, Chopin creates a character that mirrors herself and her own life. The protagonist, Edna, acts as a reflection of Kate, allowing Kate’s life and the history of the time period to be directly portrayed by the novel.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kate Chopin

    • 329 Words
    • 1 Page

    Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" and William Faulkner's "A Rosefor Emily" both characterize the nature of marriage and womanhood by delving into the psyches of their female protagonists. Also, although Chopin makes no clear reference to geographic locale in "The Story of an Hour," both authors usually set their stories in the American South, which impacts these characterizations. These two tales share many other points of reference in common. For instance, Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour" and Emily Grierson in "A Rose for Emily" die at the end of the story, and both deaths are in some way related to how the women felt about their male partners. In fact, in both cases, the women are deeply affected by the men in their lives: their personalities and lifestyles have been shaped and molded chiefly by men. However, Mrs. Mallard and Emily Grierson develop differently. Mallard is a relatively young woman, while Grierson When Brently Mallard is presumed dead, Mrs. Mallard and Grierson also exhibit different physical characteristics. Mallard grieves when she hears her husband is dead but embraces the "long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. In the end, both women die, but Mallard's death is precipitated by "a monstrous joy," unlike Grierson, who simply left behind a legacy of sadness and pity. This aspect of her character is paralleled in the springtime setting of "A Rose for Emily," in which "topsof trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. While Grierson holes up and hides from the world, Mallard has as upportive network of friends and family to which to turn. Mallard experiences an epiphany that can potentially transform her life and which brings her immense joy; Grierson, on the other hand sank into madness and depression and killed the man she loved. Emily Grierson killed the man who spurned her, only to sleep next to his decaying corpse each night. " In stark contrast to this...…

    • 329 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri to Thomas and Eliza O’Flaherty. Kate was one of five children and the only one to live past the age of twenty two. Her father was killed in a railroad accident when she was five years old. Kate didn’t grow up with many male role models or around many married couples; she was raised by her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, vigorous widows that stressed learning, curiosity, and financial independence. Kate’s great-great-grandmother was the first woman to legally separate from her husband and continue on with a successful fulfilling life in the city of St. Louis.…

    • 2934 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics