Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening

In the PBS documentary, Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening, Kate Chopin’s grandson, David Chopin said “she used to have these Thursday afternoon soirées and all the poets and the writers and the editors and people who happened to be in town were there. She sat there like the Grand Dame she was and entertained them” (Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening). Kate Chopin’s writing career was relatively short, lasting for only about 5 years. She worked almost entirely in fiction, writing two novels, one at the very beginning of her career and one near its conclusion, and a few trivial poems (Wolff 208). Daughter, sister, granddaughter, and mother of six, Kate Chopin (aka Katherine O’ Flaherty Chopin) is known as one of the first feminist authors of the 21st century, however it was not until 10 years after her death when she began to be widely recognized, especially her short story, “The Story of an Hour,” which was was one of her lesser-known short stories until the publication of The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969. In fact, Chopin was born on February 8, 1850 to Thomas O 'Flaherty and Eliza Faris. Her father, Thomas was an efficacious businessman from Galway, Ireland. Her mother, Eliza was extremely involved in the French community in St. Louis. In American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 1, Cynthia Griffin Wolff said, “Chopin was born into a thriving, expanding metropolis of 75,000 inhabitants: St. Louis, Missouri, a city unique in its combination of frontier bravado and genteel, Creole aristocracy. This was the age of riverboat trading, and steamboats would line up along the levee in a proud display of commercial energy. Chopin’s father was a part of that bustling world” (Wolff 203). She had five siblings, but her sisters died when they were babies, and her brothers in their twenties. In 1855, she attended The Sacred Heart Academy (a Catholic boarding school in St. Louis). After her father died, she lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. While at The Sacred Heart Academy, Chopin was very intelligent. She won awards, joined the elite Children of Mary Society, and gave the commencement address at her graduation. At 19 years old, Chopin married Oscar Chopin. Oscar was the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. After they married, they moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. While they were there, she had five boys and two girls, all before she was 28 years old. They were financially struggling and they had to move to a smaller Louisiana home. Her writing career began after Oscar died of swamp fever in 1882 (Wolff 207). Furthermore, she moved back to St. …show more content…
Louis to live with her mother. However, her mother died the following year leaving Chopin and her children all alone again. She began writing to support her family. In 1890, she published her first novel At Fault, followed by two short stories, “Bayou Folk” and “A Night in Acadie.” In April 1899, Chopin published her second and most popular novel, The Awakening. In American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 1, Cynthia Griffin Wolff quoted the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, “it was a poignant masterpiece that traces its heroine’s nascent stir-rings of sensuality, however, public opinion turned against her saying that it is not a healthy book” (Wolff 201). “The Story of an Hour” was originally published in Vogue magazine in 1894 under the title “The Dream of an Hour.” It was then discovered after the publication of The Complete Works of Kate Chopin and championed by feminist critics for its themes of female self-assertion and the confining nature of traditional gender roles. “The Story of an Hour” has invited a wide range of critical discussion and has become a favorite in college literature courses (Explanation of). In “The Story of an Hour” Chopin essentially questions the institution of marriage, perhaps as a by-product or her scientific questioning of mores, but she does so in a cleverly tempered way (Hicks). The short story …show more content…
Chopin died in St. Louis, Missouri on August 22, 1904 after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Even though Chopin’s popularity did not expand until about 10 years after her death, to this day, Chopin continues to be renowned as one of the greatest feminist authors of the 21st