Kate Chopin's Treatment Of Women In The 1800s

1430 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The story of an hour interpretation

Kate Chopin is well known for her feminist views on life in the 1800s. Kate expressed herself through her many novels and short stories. Kate Chopin used events in her life as an inspiration to write short stories and novels. Some of these events were tragic and heartbreaking, however Kate Chopin used these experiences in her own life to convey the struggles not only she was going through, but also what other women at that time were going through. Two books in particular that Kate Chopin used to mirror current or previous events that happened in her life are, The Awakening and The Story of an Hour. The Awakening focuses on Edna Pontellier, the main characters, struggle between feminism and the predominant view of women in the 1800s. The Story …show more content…

Louis, Missouri in 1850, to her parents, Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty. Her mother descended from a French family, while her father had an Irish background. Kate was the third of five children, but was the only child to live beyond the age of twenty-five. Kate experienced a lot of trauma in her life when both of her sisters died in infancy and both of her brothers died in their early twenties. As a child, Kate was sent to The Sacred Heart Academy, which was a catholic school in St. Louis, Missouri. Shortly after, Kate’s father was killed in a tragic train accident, where the bridge the train was going across collapsed. After this, Kate lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, whom were all widows. For her early years, Kate was mentored by mostly women, mainly her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and the nuns at The Sacred Heart Academy. Her great-grandmother taught Kate french, making her bilingual, and encouraged her to write and be artistic with her thoughts, eventually leading to Kate’s storytelling. Kate’s great-grandmother died three days before christmas in 1863, this was the same year her best friend Kitty was banished because of the civil war. Kate’s brother died on Mardi Gras Day and her father died on All Saints Day. These deaths led to Kate having a strong distrust towards religion even though she was raised

Show More
Related

  • Jane Long Research Paper

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jane was born Jane Wilkinson on July 23, 1798, in Charles County, Maryland.She was the tenth child of Captain William Mackall and Anne Herbert Wilkinson. When Jane was less than a year old her father died. In 1811 her mother moved them to Mississippi Territory. The following year her mother died and she became an orphan at the age of 14. She moved in with her older sister,Barbara,and her husband,Alexander, on their plantation near Natchez. She met her soon to be husband James Long while she was there. They ended up married to each other on May 14, 1815.For the next four years they lived in vicinity and soon became a merchant in Natchez, In 1816, when Jane was 18, she gave birth to her first child Ann on November 26. Later she had another daughter, Rebecca, on June 16, 1819. Twelve days after Rebecca was born Jane wanted to join her husband in Nacogdoches, so she left with her two children and slave, Kian.She left them at the Calvit’s. Jane became ill, but she kept on with the trip and didn’t reach Nacogdoches till August.After a short amount of time she was staying there she had to move with other families to the Sabine to run away from the Spanish troops from San Antonio. She later returned to the Calvit’s to find out that her youngest daughter,Rebecca, had died. James and her

    Read More

  • growaw Personal Growth and Death of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Awakening is a novel about the growth of a woman becoming her own person; in spite of the expectations society has for her. The book follows Edna Pontellier  as she struggles to find her identity. Edna knows that she cannot be happy filling the role that society has created for her. She did not believe that she could break from this pattern because of the pressures of society. As a result she ends up taking her own life.  However, readers should not sympathize with her for taking her own life.

    Read More

  • Conflicting Directions Of Ambitions in Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    419 Words  | 1 Pages

    Often in novels, a character faces conflicting directions of ambitions, desires, and influences. In such a novel, like “The Awakening,'; the main character, Edna Pontellier, faces these types of conflicting ideas. In a controversial era for women, Edna faces the conflict of living in oppression but desiring freedom. The patriarchal time period has influenced women to live only under the husband’s thumb but at the same time, break away from such repression. These opposing conflicts illuminated the meaning of “social awakening'; in the novel.

    Read More

  • How Does Kate Chopin Use Characterization In The Awakening

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kate Chopin’s The Awakening takes place in the late 19th century, in Grande Isle off the coast of Louisiana. The author writes about the main character, Edna Pontellier, to express her empowering quality of life. Edna is a working housewife,and yearns for social freedom. On a quest of self discovery, Edna meets Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, falls in and out of love,and eventually ends up taking her own life. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening shows how the main character Edna Pontellier has been trapped for so many years and has no freedom, yet Edna finally “awakens” after so long to her own power and her ability to be free.

    Read More

  • The True Identity In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1882 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Awakening sheds light on the desire among many women to be independent. Throughout the novel Edna conducts herself in a way that was disavowed by many and comes to the realization that her gender prevented her from pursuing what she believed would be an enjoyable life. As the story progresses Edna continues to trade her family obligations for her own personal pleasures. This behavior would not have been accepted and many even criticize the novel for even speaking about such activities. Kate Chopin essentially wrote about everything a women couldn’t do. Moreover, it also highlights the point that a man is able to do everything Edna did, but without the same

    Read More

  • Madame Edna Pontellier In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1301 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edna Pontellier, from the novella The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, serves as a clear example of a character whose mind is being pulled in two seperate directions. One side of Edna feels pulled to the classical women in America at this time. On the other hand, she wishes to remain free from her womanly restraints. We discover that she does not want to feel tied down with any man, not only her husband, Leonce Pontellier. Edna faces internal and external challenges figuring out which woman she wants to be, the one of the times or the one who possesses freedom from societal norms.

    Read More

  • The Awakening

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    On February 8, 1851, Katherine O’Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Kate was born to the parents of Thomas O’Flaherty and Eliza Faris. Her father was a wealthy Irish immigrant and a successful businessman. Sadly, Kate’s father died in a railway accident when she was only four years old. Kate’s childhood was influenced mostly by her mother and great-grandmother. Kate spent much time with her family’s Creole and mulatto slaves, becoming familiar with their dialects. She attended Sacred Heart convent where she was a very poor student, but an avid reader. At the age of eleven Kate’s great-grandmother as well as her half-brother died. These two deaths caused Kat...

    Read More

  • Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kate Chopin's novella The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a woman who throughout the novella tries to find herself. Edna begins the story in the role of the typical mother-woman distinctive of Creole society but as the novelette furthers so does the distance she puts between herself and society. Edna's search for independence and a way to stray from society's rules and ways of life is depicted through symbolism with birds, clothing, and Edna's process of learning to swim.

    Read More

  • Symbol and Irony in The Awakening by Kate Chopin

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    This story represents the lives of women back in the early 19th century. They were so closed in by societal norm and rules that many of them did not have the freedom to be who they wanted to be, or even live they life they wanted to live. The story “The Awakening” is a clear example of this scenario. Edna Pontellier did not have the courage to strength to face society so she felt like she had to die to find her freedom.

    Read More

  • Kate Chopin Essay

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kate Chopin was a feminist American short story and novelist. She is known as an advocate of feminist authors of the 20th century. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Brontes influenced her writing. She grew up in a household full of women; including her mother, great-grandmother and the female maids her mother owned. Kate spent a lot of time up in her attack reading.

    Read More

  • The Awakening

    1891 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kenneth Eble states, “…She undertook to give the unsparing truth about women’s submerged life” (2). Speaking solely about Kate Chopin, this quote puts emphasis upon Chopin’s disputes with her society. She used her writing as a technique to indirectly explicate her life by the means of narrating her stories through the characters she created. Kate Chopin was one of the modern writers of her time, one who wrote novels concentrating on the common social matters related to women. Her time period consisted of other female authors that focused on the same central theme during the era: exposing the unfairness of the patriarchal society, and women’s search for selfhood, and their search for identity. In Chopin’s novel The Awakening, she incorporates the themes mentioned above to illustrate the veracity of life as she understood it. A literary work approached by the feminist critique seeks to raise awareness of the importance and higher qualities of women. Women in literature may uncover their strengths or find their independence, raising their own self recognition. Several critics deem Chopin as one of the leading feminists of her age because she was willing to publish stories that dealt with women becoming self-governing, who stood up for themselves and novels that explored the difficulties that they faced during the time. Chopin scrutinized sole problems and was not frightened to suggest that women desired something that they were not normally permitted to have: independence. Chopin’s decision to focus on and emphasize the imbalances between the sexes is heavily influenced by her upbringing, her feelings towards society, and the era she subsisted in.

    Read More

  • Breaking the Social Norms: Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...tionship she had until she was left with literally no reason to live. Throughout the novella, she breaks social conventions, which damages her reputation and her relationships with her friends, husband, and children. Through Edna’s thoughts and actions, numerous gender issues and expectations are displayed within The Awakening because she serves as a direct representation of feminist ideals, social changes, and a revolution to come.

    Read More

  • The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mary Rowlandson was a pretentious, bold and pious character. Her narrative did not make me feel sorry for her at all, which is strange since she really did go through a lot. During the war, the Narragansett Indians attacked Lancaster Massachusetts, and burned and pillaged the whole village. During the siege Mary and her six year old child were shot, she watched her sister and most of her village either burn or get shot. She was kept as a captive, along with her three children and taken with the Narragansett’s on their long retreat. The exposition of the story is set immediately. The reader is perfectly aware of Missus Rowlandson’s status and religious beliefs. She constantly refers to the Narragansetts in an incredibly condescending way, to the point that you know that she does not even consider them human. She paints them as purely evil pe...

    Read More

  • Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour and Feminism in the 1800s

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, feminism is defined as the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism is a major part of the short story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, which is a story that portrays women’s lack of freedom in the1800s. Women had no rights, and had to cater to all of their husband’s needs. The main character in “The Story of an Hour” is a woman who suffers from heart trouble, named Mrs. Mallard. When Mrs. Mallard was told about her husband’s death, she was initially emotional, but because of her husband’s death she reaped freedom and became swept away with joy. The story is ironic because Mrs. Mallard learns her husband was not dead, and instead of exulting her husband’s sudden return she regretted abandoning her moment of freedom. An analysis of “The Story if an Hour” through the historical and feminist lenses, suggests that the story is really about women’s self-identity in the 1800s male-dominated society, and how it caused women’s lack of freedom.

    Read More

  • Influence of Kate Chopin’s Life and Environment on Her Literature

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kate Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to secure and socially prominent parent, Eliza O'Flaherty, of French-Creole descent, and Thomas O'Flaherty, an Irish immigrant and successful commission merchant. Kate attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart from 1855 until she graduated on 1868. In 1855, her father was died in a railroad accident. She lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of them were widows. Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon oversaw her education and taught her French, music, and the gossip on St. Louis women of the past. Kate O'Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single women. Victoria's own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal separation from her husband. She was influenced by her upbringing among these women. This showed up later in her fiction. For example, in her first short story “Wiser than a god” she characterized a strong and independent woman. This woman had an exceptional musical talent. She preferre...

    Read More

More about Kate Chopin's Treatment Of Women In The 1800s

Open Document