Kate Chopin

1. Kate Chopin
February 8, 1850 - August 22, 1904

2. Born
Katherine O’Flaherty
February 8, 1850
St. Louis, Missouri
Died
August 22, 1904 (age
54) St. Louis, Missouri
Occupation
Novelist, short story
writer
Genres
Realistic Fiction

3. Difficult Years
Married at age 20 (1870) to Oscar
Chopin
Moved to New Orleans were she bore
five sons and one daughter
Husband dies of malaria, leaving her a
widow at age 32 (1882)
Moved back to St. Louis where her
Obstetrician and family friend, Dr.
Frederick Kolbenheyer, felt that writing
would be a source of therapeutic healing
for her during her hard times
By the early 1890’s Kate was writing
short stories, articles and translations
which appeared in periodicals, including
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

4. Works
 “Bayou Folk”
 “A Night in Acadie”
 “At the Cadian Ball”
 “Desiree’s Baby”
 “The Story of an Hour”
 “The Storm
 “A Pair of Silk Stockings”
 “The Locket”
 “Athenaise”
 “Lilacs”
 “At Fault”
 “Respectable Woman”
 “The Unexpected
Woman”
 “The Kiss”
 “Beyond Bayou”
 “Beauty of the Baby”
 “A No-Account Creole”
 “Fedora”
 “Madame Celestin’s
Divorce”
 “The Awakening”

5. The Awakening
1899

6. Writing Style
• Straightforward
• Modern
• Insightful
• Feminism
• Realism
• Naturalism

7. Writing Influence
Taking into account her ancestry of Irish and French descent,
and her years with Creole and Cajun influences in Louisiana.
Slavery and women's rights were realities that she
incorporated in many of her stories and sketches, portraying
women in less than conventional manner, with individual
wants and needs.
Influenced by Guy de Maupassant

9. Sources
http://college.cengage.com/english/heath/sylla
build/iguide/chopin.html
http://www.katechopin.org/biography.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Chopin