FREE ESSAY ON KATE CHOPIN

KATE CHOPIN

Kate Chopin is a brilliant writer. Her writing career is during the late 1800's. She lives
in a time where women are sexually suppressed and their opinions are not valued. Her
writing holds more in common with our time than the time just after the Civil War.
Although her life was full of death, she still lived as happy a life as she could by
writing in such a bold and daring way. 
Kate Chopin was born as Catherine O'Flaherty. She was born July 12, 1850. She is the
daughter of Thomas and Eliza O'Flaherty. 
Kate's father, Thomas O'Flaherty, was born in Ireland in 1805. He came to the United
States in 1823. In 1825 he became a merchant in St. Louis. In 1855 he died suddenly in a
train wreck when she was only four. His sudden death pushed all his family into new
relationships with each other and the world. 
Thomas' first wife, Catherine de Reilhe, married Thomas in 1839. She was a French-Creole
girl, who died after giving birth to their son, George. In 1844, Thomas married Eliza
Faris. They had three children together: Jane, who died at childbirth; Thomas Jr.; and
Catherine, who we know as Kate Chopin. After the father's death, Eliza had to cope with
being a widow. 
Kate's childhood consisted of a widowed mother, and a widowed great-grandmother. As a
child, Kate experienced many deaths. She became emotionally close to her half brother
George O'Flaherty. George was a Confederate solider during the Civil War and died from
typhoid fever after being released from prison in 1862. After her father and brother's
death, Kate seemed to have collapsed. She became faintly ill, and it took her two to
three years to recover the traumatizing events of her childhood. These events changed her
permanently which made her very wary.
Kate's great-grandmother, Madame Charleville, taught her French. In fact, that was the
only thing she would speak around Kate. Madame Charleville would tell Kate stories about
the French. Giving Kate a history lesson about how the French founded the city along the
banks of the Mississippi. Some of these stories were false, but Kate didn't know the
difference. They were just, "being no more than the scandals of another day" (Magill
205). In the end, Kate received an altogether unconventional education from her
great-grandmother. Kate began a more conventional education at the Madames of the Sacred
Heart Convent in 1860. There, the nuns taught her discipline and a respectable academic
curriculum. Kate also along with English, learned French literature as well.
Kate began to play the piano at an early age. "Kitty Garesche recalls Kate being an
accomplished pianist with an exceptional musical memory" (Baechler 68). Kate began her
music with her great-grandmother supervising her piano playing. The great-grandmother
would sit patiently with Kate as she practiced her scales. She done this to teach her the
importance of discipline and technique. During her schooling with the Madames of the
Sacred Heart, the nuns encouraged Kate to continue with her piano playing. "By the time
she reached adolescence, Kate O'Flaherty was an accomplished musician" (Unger 205). 
"In June 1868, Kate graduated from the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart. She then
plunged into the fashionable life, and for two years she was...'One of he acknowledged
belles of St. Louis'" (Skaggs 2).
After Kate's graduation, she emerged from the dark period of her brother's death, Kate
became a popular young woman. In 1869 she began to smoke, which is highly unusual for a
woman in those days. "For two years Kate lived a life of an attractive girl in the 'high
society' (of French Origin) in which her mother moved" (Kunitz 150).
She was greatly fascinated by all the varieties of people she met in New Orleans."She met
aristocratic Creoles, unpretentious Cajuns (or Acadian: French pioneers who in 1755 had
chosen to leave Nova Scotia rather than live under the British), Redbones (part Indian,
part white), 'Free Mulattoes' (so called because they had never been slaves), blacks, and
a cosmopolitan assortment of Germans, Italians, Irish, and Americans" (Baechler 68).
Kate would sometimes roam the city unaccompanied. She had a liking to take a streetcar or
just simply walk on foot.
There in New Orleans she met 25 year old Oscar Chopin. She fell in love with this
businessman and in 1870 they were married. She was 19 years old then and the couple were
a perfect match and continued a fairytale marriage from then on.
Oscar Chopin descended from a French-Creole family. He lived on his father's plantation
as a cotton factor. Oscar was different from most white southerners at that time. He
treated everyone as an equal, including his father's slaves. He even once rebelled by
tying himself to his father's slaves when his father bought the McAlpin plantation (which
was said to be the model for Harriet Beeches Stowe's Legree plantation). His father was a
cruel, heartless man who even drove his wife away for some period of time when Oscar was
just a child. Oscar ran away from the cruelty to relatives when he was old enough. 
Oscar treated Kate with dignity, equality and as a valued intelligent friend as well as a
loving wife. Oscar's relatives would criticise him for allowing Kate to forget her "duty"
(Unger 206). "But Oscar and Kate merely laughed together over this display of
consternation" (Unger 206). Oscar and Kate would often speak French together even though
they lived on the American side of town. 
Oscar was a cotton factor with established family connections. He handled everything from
finance to buying farm equipment. The business was good and stable for a while but excess
rain during 1878-1879 ruined the cotton fields. This caused great losses and caused Oscar
and Kate to move with their six young children to Cloutierville. In this village, Kate
used the setting for many of her stories 
in later years.
While in Cloutierville, Oscar opened a general store where he made enough money to keep
Kate and his family comfortable and in style. 
Kate was frequently pregnant through the early years of their marriage. By the age of 28
she had five sons which she would take to St. Louis. She took many trips to great places
with her children to escape the yellow fever epidemic. Her sixth child was her first
daughter, which she was overjoyed to have. "Kate recollects the birth of her son Jean:
'The sensation with which I touched my lips and my fingertips to his soft flesh only
comes once to a mother. It must be the pure animal sensation; nothing spiritual could be
so real-so poignant'"(Unger 206). Oscar and Kate's marriage life was wonderful. But, yet
again, tragedy struck the young Creole. In 1882, Oscar came down with a terrible attack
of swamp fever. Within days Oscar was dead. Kate was 31 years old when faced with the
role of widow and businesswoman. She carried out the duties of her husband's general
store as well as raising six children. She sold most of their belongings and went to live
with her mother in St. Louis. 
She only stayed with her mother a brief moment when Kate was faced with another death. In
June 1885, her mother had died. Chopin was "literally prostrate with grief" (Unger 207).

"In later years, Chopin's daughter would sum up the effect upon her mother's character:
When I speak of my mother's keen sense of humor and of her habit of looking on the
amusing side of everything. I don't want to give the impression of her being joyous, for
she was on the contrary rather a sad nature... I think the tragic death of her father
early in her life, of her much beloved brothers, the loss of her young husband and her
mother, left a stamp of sadness on her which was never lost(Unger 207).
Chopin began writing fiction very seriously in 1889. No one knows exactly why she took up
her pen, but several influences probably contributed. First, she had always been a
voracious reader; second, she needed to provide for her large family; third, her many
friends with literary interests, especially Dr. Fredrick Kolbenheyer, encouraged her; and
finally, she had through almost 39 years living learned some things she wanted to say
(Skaggs 4).
She wrote her first story "Wiser than a God," in 1889. She had written three other
stories by the end of 1889. She published her first novel, At Fault, in 1890 at her own
expense. She made good progress until she wrote, The Awakening, her second novel on April
2, 1899. It was ahead of its time by suggesting a sinful sexual maturity in a young
married woman. It was given a very harsh critical reputation and thus banned for many
years. 
"Certainly her friend Dr. Kolenheyer influenced her significantly, apparently she was
active in cultural organizations and maintained something of a salon during the 1890's;
yet the St. Louis Fine Arts Club ostracized her after the publication of The Awakening"
(Skaggs 4).
Chopin was 39 years old when she published her first story. "Her unusual degree of
personal maturity before beginning to write may explain the speed with which she found
her focus. Few writers have moved so far so rapidly as she did between writing At Fault
in 1889-1890 and The Awakening in 1897-1898" (Skaggs 4).
Kate Chopin was a beautiful young woman. She has a charming girlish figure, and at the
time she was writing, the premature gray of her black hair contrasted her brilliant brown
eyes. She has a fair complexion to her small plump figure which caused her friends to
compare her to a beautiful French marquise. She is an avid listener and is a quiet and
stimulating woman. "As for her method of composition the effortless ease of her style
make plausible the account of how she wrote a story as soon as the theme occurred to her,
recopied it, and sent it off with practically no revision" (Johnson 91). 
A well read and loved "Story of an Hour," is about a woman with heart trouble. She hears
of the death of her husband but doesn't die over this. Instead she dies at the sight of
him being alive. This short story was published in 1894. 
The Criticism of "The Story of an Hour", it begins with the complexities of marriage.
(April 1894-as elsewhere, the date indicated the date of composition as determined by Per
Seyersted in Works), one of her most powerful efforts, offers a provocative glimpse of
the complexities in marriage. Running to a scant three pages, it tells of Mrs. Mallard's
reaction to the sudden and unexpected news that her husband has been killed in a railroad
disaster. "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that
kills." The story concludes upon just that note. There is no omniscient voice to explain
or moralize Mrs. Mallard's hysteric joy. It merely stands, stark and matter-of-fact
(Unger 212-213).
First published in 1969, Kate's vivid story, "The Storm," is about a married woman who
suddenly commits adultery. "She responds not with shame but with joy at her sexual
awakening and continued her love for her husband" (Magill 390). 
In this 5-part short story, the narrative structure allows Chopin to present varying
perspectives on a single situation as a means of suggesting that reality" is, at best,
relative. The situation is simple enough: Calixta's husband, Bobinot, and her son, Bibi,
are in town when a storm hits; alone at home, Calixta is about to shut the windows and
doors against the storm when her former lover, Alcee Laballiere, rides into the yard
seeking shelter. While the storm rages, Calixta and Alcee renew their passionate feelings
for one another; their desire finally leads them into making love. When the storm abates,
Alcee departs and Calixta welcomes her family back home. The story concludes, "So the
storm passed and everyone was happy.(Magill 391)
Like all Chopin's best fiction, "The Storm" does not offer pat moral truisms, indeed, the
shocking element of this story's conclusion is that the retribution one might expect for
the act of adultery never comes. In section two, the crucial love scene is played out
against ironic allusions to Christian symbolism: the assumption, and immaculate dove, a
lily, and the passion. Chopin offers a moral tale in which a woman's experience is not
condemned but celebrated and in which she uses that experience not to abandon her family
but to accept them with a renewed sense of commitment. Unlike The Awakening, "The Storm"
allows a woman to gain personal fulfillment and to remain happily married. As in most
naturalistic fiction, morality-like reality-is relative (Magill 391).
The Awakening is about the repressive world of 19th century America. This is where a
young woman leads a regular, conventional life of an upper-class wife and mother. When
she turns 28, she finds herself confused about life in general. She is so suffocated that
she is willing to do anything, including defying Louisiana Creole morals, to gain
spiritual independence. She awakens herself but never finds acceptable means of spiritual
fulfillment. Her awakening even continues to her death. 
Kate Chopin's The Awakening has become one of the classics of feminist literature because
of it's theme of sexual awakening and a woman's right to freedom of choice in matters of
love (Magill 159). Chopin was ahead of her time. Her novel, The Awakening met with
critical abuse and public denunciation. A reviewer writing for the magazine "Public
Opinion" in 1899 stated that he was "Well satisfied" with Edna's suicide because she
deserved to die for her immoral behavior. Chopin never wrote another novel and gradually
gave up writing altogether (Magill 159).
After her devastating critical reputation from The Awakening, Chopin's writing career was
virtually over. The Awakening went out of print until 1969 when Per Seyersted issued in
two volumes, The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. It was only five years after her
publication of The Awakening that Kate Chopin died. She died of a stroke cause by a brain
hemorrhage. After her death on August 20th, 1904, her work was forgotten and all but
impossible to obtain. She lived a life of death, love, success and failure. In the end
she lived an all-in-all achieving life.