Kate Chopin Gives a Womans Voice to Realism

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Kate Chopin Gives a Womans Voice to Realism

Kate Chopin succeeded in giving a woman's voice to realism. While doing this she sacrificed her career. This seems to be a "higher order of feminism than repeating the

story of a woman as victim...Kate Chopin gives her female protagonist the central role,

normally reserved for the man, in a meditation on identity and culture, consciousness, and art." (Robinson 3) "The role of woman in the society Chopin creates is of special interest and relevance. (Robinson 6)

Introduction to Kate Chopin

Before Kate Chopin came onto the writing scene, women had an insignificant role

in society. Women never did anything that would cause some sort of controversy. All

literature focused around a male main character as well. Most stories being written at the time were about male characters and their stories, not the women. Kate Chopin changed that.

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri

in 1851. Her father was an Irish immigrant and her mother was of French descent. They

introduced Kate to music and writing at an early age. (Elements of Literature 481)

At nineteen she married Oscar Chopin, who was a French Creole from New Orleans. They had six children together. After her husband's sudden death IN???, she moved back to ST. Louis and began to write. In 1890 she published her first novel. Her stories concerned the life of French Creole in Louisiana and were praised for their accurate

portrayal of the French. Her themes are a much more controversial matter: it was the

repression of women in Victorian America. This theme was presented in her famous novel

The Awakening. (Robinson 15)

The Awakening

Kate Chopin's most well...

... middle of paper ...

...s. She

accomplished her goals, and made a major impact on writing. Kate Chopin influenced

many other women writers today. She was "a pioneer of her own time, in her portrayal of

women's desires of independence and control of their own sexuality." (Toth 481)

Bibliography:

1. Allen, Priscilla. "Old Critics and New: The treatment of Chopin's The Awakening."

The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism, eds. Arlyn Diamond and Lee

R. Edwards. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997.

2. Chopin, Kate. "A Pair of Silk Stockings" Elements of Literature. Orlando, Florida:

Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1993 481-484

3. Moers, Ellen. Literary Women: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976

4. Q. Arpin, Susan Allen Toth. Elements of Literature, 5th Course. Orlando, Florida:

Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1993

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