Kate Chopin

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Kate Chopin
Image:Chopin1.jpg Kate Chopin in 1894
Born	February 8 1850(1850-02-08) St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Died	August 22 1904 (aged 54) St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer
Genres	realistic fiction
Literary movement	feminist

Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty on February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole background. She is now considered to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 19th century.

From 1889 to 1902, she wrote short stories for both children and adults which were published in such magazines as Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, the Century, and Harper's Youth's Companion. Her major works were two short story collections, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her important short stories included "Desiree's Baby", a tale of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana; "The Story of an Hour" and "The Storm."

Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899), which is set in New Orleans and Grand Isle. The people in her stories are usually inhabitants of Louisiana. Many of her works are set about Natchitoches in north central Louisiana. In time, literary critics determined that Chopin addressed the concerns of women in all places and for all times in her literature.

Contents 1 Childhood 2 Difficult years 3 The writing years 4 Works 4.1 Story collections 4.2 Novels 4.3 Collected edition 5 Resources 6 External links

[edit] Childhood

Kate O'Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Thomas O'Flaherty, was a successful businessman who had immigrated from Galway, Ireland. Her mother, Eliza Faris, was a well-connected member of the French community in St. Louis. Her maternal grandmother, Athena'ise Charleville, was of French Canadian descent. Some of her ancestors were among the first European inhabitants of Dauphin Island, Alabama.[1]

Kate's father died in 1855, when Kate was only five. As a founder of the Pacific Railroad, he was aboard the inaugural trip when a bridge across the Gasconade River collapsed. Mr. O'Flaherty was among the fatalities. That same year, Kate entered the St. Louis Catholic Academy of the Sacred Heart.

After her father's death, Kate developed a close relationship with both her mother and her great-grandmother. She also became an avid reader of fairy tales, poetry, and religious allegories, as well as classic and contemporary novels. Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens were among her favorite authors.

The year 1863 was a bad one for Kate's family: her great-grandmother died, as did her half-brother, George O'Flaherty. (Her father had been previously married, and his first wife, George's mother, had died. Kate's mother was much younger than her father.) George O'Flaherty was a Confederate soldier who died of swamp fever as a prisoner of war. Kate dropped out of regular schooling and became further engrossed in her world of books.

In 1865, she returned to Sacred Heart Academy, and began keeping a commonplace book. She graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in 1868, but did not achieve any particular distinction — except as a master storyteller.

[edit] Difficult years

In 1869, at the age of 20, she married Oscar Chopin and settled in New Orleans. In 1879 Oscar's cotton brokerage failed, and the family moved to Cloutierville, Louisiana, south of Natchitoches, to manage several small plantations and a general store. They became active in the community, and Kate absorbed much material for her future writing, especially regarding the Creole culture of the area. Their home at 243 Highway 495 (built by Alexis Cloutier in the early part of the century) is now a national historic landmark and the home of the Bayou Folk Museum.

When Oscar died in 1882 of swamp fever (like her half-brother two decades earlier), he left Kate $12,000 in debt (approximately $229,360 in 2005 dollars) [2]. Kate attempted to manage the plantations and store alone but with little success. She engaged in a relationship with a married farmer.

Her mother implored her to move back to St. Louis, and Kate and the children gradually settled into life in St. Louis, where finances were no longer a concern. The following year, Kate's mother died.

When Kate suffered a nervous breakdown, her doctor suggested she write as a way to calm herself. She took his advice, and soon re-discovered her natural story-telling.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The writing years

By the late 1890s, Kate was writing short stories, articles, and translations which appeared in periodicals, including The Saint Louis Dispatch. She became known as a regional local color writer, but her literary qualities were overlooked.

In 1899, her second novel, The Awakening, was published, and was criticized based on moral as well as literary standards. Her best-known work, it is the story of a dissatisfied wife. Out of print for several decades, it is now widely available and critically acclaimed for its writing quality and importance as an early feminist work.

Kate, deeply discouraged by the criticism, turned to short story writing. In 1900 she wrote The Gentleman from New Orleans, and that same year was listed in the first edition of Marquis Who's Who. However, she never made much money from her writing and depended on investments in both Louisiana and St. Louis to sustain her.

While visiting the St. Louis World's Fair on August 20, 1904 Kate was felled by a brain hemorrhage and died two days later, at the age of fifty-four. She was interred in St. Louis cemetery.

Kate Chopin has been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

[edit] Works

[edit] Story collections

• Bayou Folk, (Houghton Mifflin, 1894)
• A Night In Acadie, (Way and Williams,1897)

[edit] Novels

• At Fault, (Nixon Jones Printing Co, [St. Louis], 1890)
• The Awakening, (H.S. Stone, 1899)

[edit] Collected edition

• Sandra M. Gilbert, ed., Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories (At Fault, Bayou Folk, A Night in Acadie, The Awakening, Uncollected Stories), (Library of America, 2002) ISBN 978-1-93108221-1.

[edit] Resources

• "Kate O'Flaherty Chopin", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. I (1988), p. 176

[edit] External links

• The Kate Chopin International Society
• Works by Kate Chopin at Project Gutenberg
• Chronology of her life, from a Public Broadcasting Service website
• Reproductions of selected late 19th century magazine articles by Chopin, from the Library of Congress
• Kate Chopin's House in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, also from the Library of Congress
• The Awakening
• "Regret" a short story at American Literature
• "Kate Chopin" at the American Authors site includes bibliographies, study questions, and links.
• "The Story of an Hour" at Wikisource

Persondata
NAME	Chopin, Kate
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	O'Flaherty, Katherine
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American novelist, short story writer
DATE OF BIRTH	February 8, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH	St. Louis, Missouri, United States
DATE OF DEATH	August 22, 1904
PLACE OF DEATH	St. Louis, Missouri, United States

da:Kate Chopin

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