TheLife and Influence of Kate Chopin - Research Paper Example

The Life of Kate Chopin Kate Chopin was born in February of 1851. Her Father was a noble business man who was successful at his work. Unfortunately, he died when Chopin was only 4 years old, leaving her in the care of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. It can be assumed that being raised by these three powerful women in the absence of a man had a great impact on Chopin’s perceptions about life. To her, life was not only in the hands of a man to command, but women had power too.

While watching her mother and grandmothers work and successfully maintain surely a strong sense of feminism developed in the young Chopin. As a child, Chopin loved to read. Her family mostly kept encyclopedias and Bibles in the home library, but Chopin did not limit herself to these. She came to have many favorite authors and regularly read the works of scientific authors like Darwin in order to train her own rational thinking. The author that had the most impact on Chopin’s writing was Guy de Maupassant, a French writer whom she admired for his “nonjudgmental and unsentimental appreciation of reality” (Skredisrig 1975; p. 90). .

Following the example of her mother, Chopin continued to manage her husband’s business alone. Eventually, she returned to St. Luis, the city that she had called home since birth. Chopin wrote in order to provide for her family. During her writing career, Chopin produced a few works that have earned some notoriety, including At Fault (1890), Bayou Folk (1894), The Story of an Hour (1894), A Night in Acadie (1897), and The Awakening (1899). However, Chopin wrote constantly and is responsible for many other works.

She has written 100 short stories, a play, some poetry, various essays, sketches, literary reviews, journals, letters, translations, and some nonfiction material (Skredsrig 1975; p. 89). Of her written works it was said that the reflected the needs, despairs and desires of the people in her society that she was able to observe (Ostman 2008; p.10). The Influence of Chopin Even though her book, The Awakening, had been criticized for lack of morals and open sexuality by many, there was some who found appreciation for it.

Her other works were not as harshly scrutinized. She was a popular enough writer in her day to be able to support her large family with the money that she made writing. The Awakening was the last piece that Chopin ever published. She died a few years after the work. While many think that Chopin had ceased to write because of the harsh judgments that she faced because of this last work, the truth is that there are other short stories written by Chopin after this time that were never published.

Possibly, if she had not died, there would have been other works from her that were published. It took about five more decades before The Awakening could lose its bad reputation and be better appreciated. In the 1950’s with the activism that