A Little Piece of Kate Chopin

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Recommended: The role of the nineteenth-century female in literature

Many authors find inspiration through their past experiences, whether it is subconscious or not they incorporate a little part of their life into their stories. Katherine O’Flaherty, later Kate Chopin, grew up very differently from many girls in the eighteen hundreds. Her unusual childhood had her surrounded by three independent and educated women, which is how she grew up with such strong feminist views. Throughout her schooling and homelife, Kate was taught to live independently and think for herself. Kate Chopin uses her life’s experiences to help shape her characters and plot throughout many of her writings including “The Story of an Hour” and The Awakening.
Growing up in St. Louis, Kate rarely moved during her life, from St. Louis Kate and her husband Oscar moved to New Orleans where they raised six kids. Although Kate loved her kids, she hated getting caught up in motherly activities. Often times she would travel to familiar places such as Grand Isle and St. Louis as a miniature escape from reality. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin the main character Edna Pontellier married her husband and moved to New Orleans just as Kate did with Oscar. Edna and Leonce would vacation on Grand Isle during the summer, which was a very familiar place to Chopin seeing as she would also go there with her family for their little vacations. Edna was not a very good mother and did not pay much attention to her children, she was always out of the house and giving her responsibilities to the nurse. Unlike Edna Adele Ratignolle, one of her friends, was “... the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a brute, deserving of death by slow torture.” (?) She was a typical housewife during the nineteenth centu...

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...ry of an Hour” ?), Eliza was free to live the way she wanted and not have to conform to something she was not.
Using the biographical lens a reader can understand her work more thoroughly and get a better sense of what she is trying to say. Kate’s unusual upbringing had a major role in her view on the world and helped shape not only her stories but her characters as well. The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour” are just two examples where Kate uses real life people and places to get her inspiration from. A little bit of Kate Chopin’s life can be seen throughout many of her short stories and novels.

Works Cited

Deter, Floramaria. "Kate Chopin." Kate Chopin. 05 Dec. 2013 .
Wyatt, Neal. "Biography of Kate Chopin." Biography of Kate Chopin. 03 Dec. 2013 .

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