The Awakening: The Fall of Kate Chopin’s Career

Did you ever wonder what it was like for a woman to live in the 1800’s? Like in any other decade, there were many memorable events that influenced the writers of this era, but for women writers, this era was characterized by feminism and the fight for women’s rights. Writers like Kate Chopin brought most of the feminist issues to the light through books such as hers, The Awakening. Kate Chopin had a difficult childhood, in which she lost most of her family members. When she began writing, she revealed beliefs of movement of leaders about rights of women. Critics say Chopin based most of the characters in her books on leaders of the movement, on herself, and on regular women of her time.

Chopin’s life was in a downward spiral until she started publishing her works of literature. After publishing The Awakening, her life progressively began looking up. Kate Chopin’s birth was in St. Louis on February 8, 1851. Five years later, she started school at the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Later on in her schooling, she found a classmate that had the same love for reading and writing as she, but not long after, she had to stop attending school for two years (Adams ix). This was because of the death of her father. Chopin was the only of her three siblings to live a long life. She lived with her widowed mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother (Long). Nine years later, her grandmother passed away. This was only shortly after that passing of her brother (Adams ix). When she finally went back to school, she had picked up her Cajun

Uriegas 2

influence (Long). Chopin was now also a nonconformist. Her family owned slaves that she loved spending time with. She took down the union flag and hid it earning the name St. Louis’s littl...

... middle of paper ...

...t 123). The Awakening shows the Creoles living in the French Quarters and how the other Creole Americans live (Hatchet 123). It also shows that the initial influence stayed strong (Hatchet 123).

Kate Chopin had her share of rough times in life, but writing was her escape. She used her writing to let people know what was going on the world as far as women’s rights were concerned. The critics say that Chopin showed her rebellious attitude through her characters and the Creole influences that were apparent in her books. Kate Chopin was not a part of the women’s rights movement, but they inspired her writing in many ways. Women of this time had very few rights and what rights they had were not given up. Feminism was on the rise writers like Kate Chopin helped everyone see what women needed and deserved even though their opinions were very controversial.