Tonie – Kate Chopin

1. Tonie – Kate Chopin Year 11 (English Literature)

2. Lilacs "Lilacs" characters: • Adrienne Farival, an actor in Paris • Sister Agathe, a loving friend from Adrienne's youth in the convent • Sister Marceline and Sister Marie Anne, also friends from the convent • the Mother Superior of the convent • Old Philippe, groundskeeper at the convent • Sophie, Adrienne's servant in Paris • Rosalie, a neighbor of Adrienne's in Paris

3. Lilacs - Setting The story takes place at a convent in France and in the chambers of Adrienne Farival in Paris, apparently in the 1880s or early 1890s. Black vs White Honour vs Dishonour Rich vs Poor Love vs Hate Shame vs Pride

4. Differences It's strange to read a Kate Chopin story set in France, rather than in Louisiana. What prompted Chopin to turn to France and nuns and a performer rather than stay focused on the Creoles and Acadians she usually writes about? Kate Chopin spoke French throughout her life and visited Paris on her honeymoon. She studied with the sisters of the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart when she was a child. Her lifelong friend Kitty Garesché entered the Sacred Heart Convent. And Chopin loved the theatre and opera. Bernard Koloski argues that she had in mind the great French player Sarah Bernhardt as she wrote this story. Bernhardt made many tours of the United States and liked to perform for French-speaking audiences in St. Louis and New Orleans

5. Main Ideas • Why is Adrienne banned from the convent? • There are other elements in the story, but one straightforward explanation is that she is denied entrance to the convent because someone has revealed that Adrienne lives a wild, scandalous life, a life of "picturesque disorder," as a singer and dancer in Paris. She is not the "older and wiser" widowed woman with "household duties" that the nuns had thought she is. It is hinted in the last paragraphs of the story that Adrienne will try to find out who told the nuns this, who is responsible for "this treacherous turn."