Kate Chopin

1. Kate Chopin by Alex Solarino "I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself." Edna Pontellier in The Awakening. Kate Chopin

2. Let’s get to know her better.. About her life: American author Kate Chopin (1850–1904) wrote two published novels and about a hundred short stories in the 1890s. Most of her fiction is set in Louisiana. Published by some of America's most prestigious magazines, including Vogue and the Atlantic Monthly. Her stories appeared in anthologies from the 1920s. Curiosity: Vogue first issue had come out just a few weeks before, in December 1892. It cost ten cents (about $2.30 in 2009 American dollars).

3. Let’s get to know her better.. About her life: Catherine (Kate) O'Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 8, 1850. Her father was Thomas O'Flaherty of County Galway, Ireland. Her mother was Eliza Faris of St. Louis. Kate's family on her mother's side was of French extraction. Kate grew up speaking both French and English. She was bilingual and bicultural. 1868 Kate attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart. Mentored by woman--by her mother, her grandmother, great grandmother, as well as by the Sacred Heart nuns.

4. Let’s get to know her better.. About her life: On her wedding trip the couple traveled to Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York, and then crossed the Atlantic and toured Germany, Switzerland, and France. Between 1871 and 1879 she gave birth to five sons and a daughter. In New Orleans, where she and her husband lived until 1879, Chopin was at the center of Southern aristocratic social life. 1882 her husband Oscar died of malaria, in 1885 her mother died too. She became active in St. Louis literary and cultural circles, discussing the works of many writers, including Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Émile Zola, and George Sand.

5. Let’s get to know her better.. About her life: Kate spent the Civil War in St. Louis, a city where residents supported both the Union and the Confederacy. She was deeply responsive during the period just prior to her undertaking a literary career to the major new ideas and fiction of her time, reading fully in Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and the French naturalists. From 1867 to 1870 Kate kept a "commonplace book" in which she recorded diary entries. Writing for her was a therapy against depression. Chopin's seemingly different writing style did in fact emerge from an admiration of Guy de Maupassant. “...I read his stories and marveled at them. Here was life, not fiction”

6. What does she tells us about herself? Kate Chopin: In Her Own Words "Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions." Description of Edna Pontellier in “The Awakening.” "She wanted to reach out her hand in the darkness and touch him with the sensitive tips of her fingers upon the face or the lips. She wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek—she did not care what—as she might have done if she had not been a respectable woman." Description of Mrs. Baroda in "A Respectable Woman.“

7. What does she tells us about herself? Kate Chopin: In Her Own Words "'It means,' he answered lightly, 'that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.'" Armand Aubigny in "Désirée's Baby.“ "When the girl looked up into her face, with murmured thanks, Fedora bent down and pressed a long, penetrating kiss upon her mouth." Description of Fedora in "Fedora.“ "I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself." Edna Pontellier in “The Awakening.

8. Chopin’s Refusal To Condemn Her Protagonist

9. Some Of Her Works: • S t o r i e s • Bayou Folk • A Night In Acadie • The Storm • The Story of an Hour • Désirée's Baby • A Pair of Silk Stockings • Athenaise • At the Cadian Ball • Lilacs • A Respectable Woman • The Unexpected • The Kiss • Beyond the Bayou • Beauty of The Baby • N o v e l s • At Fault • The Awakening • Today Kate Chopin is best known for her sensitive treatment of women's lives. • But in the 1890s she was praised mostly for her "local color," her pictures of Louisiana Creoles and Acadians. • All topics part of her Naturalism view.

10. The Symbolic Use Of The Sea In “The Awakening”: • It opens on Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico where the Pontelliers are summering, and it closes there. The very same sentence, about "the voice of the sea," occurs twice in the book. The first time, early in the story, is shortly after the following passage: • Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her … perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.

11. A Graphic Short Story Based on "The Story of an Hour" "Free, free, free!" Later, when she discovers that her husband is alive, she dies out of grief. The doctors believe that she died from the joy of seeing her husband.

12. In 1904 Chopin returned home from a fair, she was very tired. She died the day after, doctors thought that she had had a cerebral hemorrhage. In his 1969 biography, Per Seyersted summarizes what Kate Chopin accomplished. She "broke new ground in American literature," he says. "She was the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction. Revolting against tradition and authority; She was something of a pioneer in the amoral treatment of sexuality, of divorce, and of woman’s urge for an existential authenticity.