Kate Chopin

OUTLINE

I. General Background Information

a. Father dies at age of five.

i. Kate Chopin’s father dies suddenly, and so, at five years old, Kate is forced to reshape her concept of herself and her world. After her father's death, Kate's family included her widowed mother, her widowed grandmother and her widowed great-grandmother.

b. Marries and has six children.

i. Married a wealthy Creole cotton magnate, Oscar, moved to New Orleans and gave birth to six children.

c. Husband dies & Chopin begins to seriously write.

i. Chopin’s husband dies and she realizes that she needs to turn her writings into a way to support herself and her six children.

II. Chopin’s Feminist Writings

a. “Wiser Than A God”

i. In 1889, Chopin published her first two stories, "Wiser Than a God" and "A Point at Issue," both focusing on what would prove to be her favorite themeвЂ"the inherent conflict between the traditional requirement that a wife form her life around her husband's and a woman's need for discrete personhood, a conflict that in Chopin's stories often prevents a woman from having both a happy marriage and a life of her own. These first stories lack finesse; but they introduce the central conflict of her last important work, the novel The Awakening (Lauter 4).

b. The Storm

i. "The Storm," about two lover's infidelity during a thunderstorm, shows Chopin's interest in passion and infidelity (Angelfire 2)

c. “Desiree’s Baby and “The Story of an Hour”

i. Searches for female spiritual emancipation, which she found and expressed in her writings (Deter, 1)

III. Other Works

a. Chopin also wrote many outstanding children's stories, such as "Loka" and "Odalie Misses Mass" (Lauter 6).

IV. The Awakening

a. Shunned by Southern Literary Society.

i. The Awakening was very much ahead of its time; critics were outraged at its moral statements, and Chopin was shunned by southern literary society (Feminism in Literature 6).

b. Condemned by most males.

c. Condemned because of its sexual openness.

i. In 1899, America was not ready for Kate Chopin, who had the audacity to write about female oppression and a woman's emotional and sexual needs at a time when neither subject was acknowledged. A barrage of critical abuse and personal ostracization followed the novel's publication and, unfortunately for her later admirers, extinguished her period of creativity (Ker 10).

V. Reviews

a. Christina Ker

i. The question of who was Kate Chopin and what influences did she have has often been asked by readers of her works. Having written the majority of her stories over a 10-year span, and not having begun to write until the age of 39, Kate Chopin was, as one of her most famous characters, Mademoiselle Reisz, stated, "The artist who dares and defies" (Ker 2).

b. Paul Lauter

i. Critics hardly knew what to do about the work of Kate Chopin, author of some of the boldest and best stories written in America before 1960. Hers were nineteenth-century stories exploring all sorts of taboo subjectsвЂ"miscegenation, divorce, and even female sexuality (Lauter 1).

Introduction

Chopin has emerged as one of the most remarkable American writers of the nineteenth century. Though her works on average reveal the language and customs of Louisiana, she portrayed characters from all social classes of her time and placeвЂ"refined Creoles, middle- and lower-class Acadians and "Americans," and blacks. Her stories look at relationships among these diverse classes and, especially, relationships between men and women. She demonstrates early signs of feminist viewpoints in most of her work, especially in Wiser Than A God, The Storm, and The Awakening (Lauter 3).

Conclusion

Chopin’s work was damned in its time because of its sexual frankness. It was rediscovered in the 1930s and has now received many raves for the beauty of its writing and for its modern understanding. With the fiery conditions surrounding The Awakening, editors decided to defer printing of her third set of stories, A Vocation and a Voice. The collection was not printed until 1991, 87 years after her death. Had Chopin held off writing The Awakening perhaps her career as a writer would not have been cut so short (Angelfire 3).

Summary

Chopin has emerged as one of the most remarkable American writers of the nineteenth century. Though her works on average reveal the language and customs of Louisiana, she portrayed characters from all social classes of her time and placeвЂ"refined Creoles, middle- and lower-class Acadians and "Americans," and blacks. Her stories look at relationships among these diverse classes and, especially, relationships between men and women. She demonstrates early signs of feminist viewpoints in most of her work, especially in Wiser Than A God, The Storm, and The Awakening (Lauter 3).

Chopin was five when she was shattered by the sudden death of her father, Thomas O’Flannery. He was the center of her life. After his death, her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, who were all widowers, raised Chopin. The lack of male role models in her life prevented her from experiencing the traditional compliance of women to men in her social spheres, and that of marriage. Her role models at home and school were mainly women. Chopin was accustomed to seeing women in positions of self-sufficiency and power.

Chopin married Oscar Chopin of New Orleans in 1870. Oscar was a Creole cotton broker. During the first 10 years of their marriage, Chopin and her husband, Oscar had six children. Chopin did not forfeit her independence; instead, she violated all the rules of predictable female behavior. She rolled

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