Kate Chopin Research Paper

The life of Kate Chopin started in a world of women. Following the tragic death of her father, the author lived with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. The late 1800s was a tumultuous time in the United States. The cultural scene of the country was changing quickly, and for the first time, women brought private and personal issues into the public domain. This author portrays the lives of women in a world controlled by male dominance while developing their individual personalities. Chopin’s characters were usually socially accepted but rebelled against the social codes of the day. The Victorian period that shaped Chopin’s life was the subject used in many of her writings and the settings of her short stories and novels …show more content…
The author challenged the society in which she lived because, in the 19th-century, freedom for women was not the same as enjoyed by men. In the nineteenth-century, society considered women physically weaker yet morally superior to men, which meant women should serve as domestics, mothers, and housekeepers. This author was one of the few willing to address the subject of women’s rights at a time when women appeared as objects. Major themes in the writings of Kate Chopin are freedom and liberation. Women in the Victorian era often performed as caretakers who should stay in the home while the man of the house provided the financial support. The world in which Chopin lived and wrote was an age characterized by gender inequality. As Emily Toth explained, “Kate Chopin might stroll slowly up and down the street, sporting her fashionable parasol. Crossing the street, she would lift her skirts provocatively, displaying her ankles” (87). In a time when the general expectation was that women remain subservient to their fathers and husbands, Kate Chopin marched to a different drummer. The nineteenth-century posed barriers for women because of the patriarchal society and the belief that women should stay at home and raise children. These three short stories show that women’s liberation is a critical issue and the means by which the women of the …show more content…
This story is different from the other two in that it is about unfaithfulness within a marriage. Colloquial language in this story makes it difficult to read in places, and the reader has to concentrate on the written words. The raging storm represents the sexuality and passion stifled by marriage. During a horrific storm, Calixta commits adultery, but instead of feeling guilty, she feels liberated and free about an act considered a sin in her time. Anna Shannon Elfenbein asserts, “This couple's passion during the storm involves nothing less than a revelation of oneness of man, woman, and nature in an experience that precludes moral judgments" (qdt in Stein 36). The protagonist, Calixta, meets a man from her past during a storm and the two seem automatically drawn together again. Alce’s touch arouses Calixta sexually “her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world” (section II line 69). A short, passionate fling began outside of the realm of marriage. Consequently, as her husband and son return, she kissed her husband on the cheek as if nothing had happened in his absence. On the other hand, Alce wrote his wife a letter telling her not to hurry home because he was well and getting along nicely. “Devoted as she was to her husband, their