Kate Chopin And The Awakening

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Kate Chopin was an influential, controversial, and brilliant writer that in this modern day has relatively been forgotten. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1851 to French-Creole descendant Eliza Faris and Irish immigrant Thomas O’Flaherty. It was during her early childhood that she gained her inspiration for writing from her great-grandmother Victoria Verdon Charleville. Chopin also experienced a lot of death during her childhood, her great-grandmother and half brother dying when she was eleven and her father dying after that. Graduating from Academy of the Sacred Heart in 1968 she then took two years to be single, travel and experience the world. Then in 1870 she married a Creole man from Louisiana in 1870. Together they lived in New …show more content…
Then two collections of short fiction titled Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie were published in 1894 and 1897, respectively. It was also during 1894 that the chilling short story The Story of an Hour was published in VOGUE. Then in 1899 what most consider her greatest work was published, titled The Awakening. However, after The Awakening was published Chopin’s career came to a slow stop. Towards the end of her career as a writer, the public lost interest because her style did not change with the times of the day. And because of this ‘self-esteem blow’ she wrote only seven short stories between 1900 and 1904. At this time, she was in her early fifties and already her health was failing her. She had circulatory trouble which gave her disabling weakness. On August 20, 1904, Chopin had a stroke and died two days after. Kate Chopin wrote many great works in her lifetime. Inspiration has to be drawn from somewhere, and it is believed that Kate Chopin took her inspiration away from her own life and experience. (DeSaussure Davis/”Chopin, Kate …show more content…
Louis Missouri to a bilingual household. Her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was an Irish immigrant and successful merchant. While her mother, Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, was a woman of French-Creole descent. Living in the O’Flaherty house was Katherine’s great-grandmother Mme. Victoria Verdon Charleville, whom of which instilled the young girl’s love for writing and curiosity about life. Also living with the O’Flaherty’s was George O’Flaherty, Katherine’s half brother from their father’s previous marriage. The last person living in the house was Thomas O’Flaherty Jr., Katherine’s older brother. Kate experienced death very early on in her childhood. When she was only four years old her father died in a train accident. When she was eleven her great-grandmother passed away due to old age and then two months later her half-brother George was killed in the Civil War. She graduated from Academy of the Sacred Heart in 1868 at the age of seventeen It was usually during this time right after schooling that women would get married, however, Kate chose to have two years that she was single and traveled. Once the two years were gone she decided to marry a Creole man from Louisiana, Oscar Chopin in 1870. For ten years, the couple lived in New Orleans, where they owned a business to make money, and it was during this time that they had six children in all. However, in 1879 their cotton factoring business failed, forcing the family to move to

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