Every writer has an influence. Some are influenced by the ideas that the author has; some are influenced by the style, which the author writes with. Still others are so intrigued by a writer that they are not only influenced by their way of thinking and their writing, but they actually begin to mimic the author in many ways. This is the case with Guy de Maupassant’s influence on Kate Chopin, who is undoubtedly the greatest influence on Chopin’s writing.
	"Maupassant was born in Châteaude de Miromesnil, Normandy" (Encarta). He received his education at Yvetot and Rauen and there joined a literary team where he was trained as a writer of fiction by Flaubert, another well know French author (Encarta). He, like Chopin, wrote many short stories, for which he is remembered the most (Encarta). Like Chopin, Maupassant’s ideas were looked at as "immoral" and "mature," dealing with ideas such as "sex," loneliness, and "depression" (Jones 385). He questioned the standards of the day, and was therefore rejected by many people as an immoral person (Jones 385).
Kate Chopin’s interest in Maupassant began after her mother died (Toth 181). At that time she had moved to a new location in the city where she lived and began to make new friends who were interested in the writings of Maupassant (Toth181). She described vividly how she felt upon reading Guy de Maupassant for the first time:
His writing undoubtedly moved her. Chopin claims to have felt that he spoke to her "directly" and "intimately" (Toth 181). She admired him most for the things that made him the writer that he was. She was intrigued by his escape from "’tradition and authority’ and for having ‘entered into himself and looked out upon life through his own being and with his own eyes’"(Skaggs 205). Eventually Maupassant replaced other writers as her primary influence and "literary model" (Toth 205).
	Chopin had such and interest in Maupassant that she translated many of his stories from French to English (Toth 273). Due to there content, however, several were never published (Toth 273). Chopin had been taught French by her grandmother, who wanted her to know "how to speak and write French well" (Toth 35). Through this Chopin was able to take the stories of Maupassant and easily translate them. The more Chopin translated Maupassant the more she was influenced by his thinking and writing (Tonth 274). Even in reading Maupassant’s stories, while they are translated, you can still tell that there is a remarkable similarity to Chopin’s writing and his.
Edna Pontellier Throughout The Awakening , a novel by Kate Chopin, the main character, Edna Pontellier showed signs of a growing depression. There are certain events that hasten this, events which eventually lead her to suicide. At the beginning of the novel when Edna's husband, Leonce Pontellier, returns from Klein's hotel, he checks in on the children and believing that one of them has a fever he tells his wife, Edna. She says that the child was fine when he went to bed, but Mr. Pontellier is certain that he isn't mistaken: "He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children." (7) Because of the reprimand, Edna goes into the next room to check on the children.
Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1851, into a wealthy Catholic family in St. Louis Missouri. As a little girl, her father died a few years later in 1855 and was raised at home with her other sisters and mother, strong willed and prominent women who believed in self sufficiency. Soon, on June 9, 1870, Chopin married a man named Oscar. She graduated from St. Louis convent school. In the meanwhile, Kate was soon busy by the occupations of a being a mother and wife to the prestigious business man, Oscar whom she married. Throughout this escapade of life, Kate was forced to relocate often due to her husband’s change of business. Although, it was difficult to build upon these circumstances, Kate managed a small farm and plantation farm to keep things running. Even through these circumstances, Kate pulled through only to discover that all these locals would soon be her inspirations and se...
Wyatt, Neal "Biography of Kate Chopin" English 384: Women Writers. Ed. Ann M. Woodlief Copyright: 1998, Virginia Commonwealth University. (26 Jan. 1999) http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katebio.htm
Chopin's stories seem very modern in different ways even though it was written about two hundred years ago. Chopin says that it "..does not always find that marriage necessarily requires that a wife be dominated by their husband,.."(Oklopcic 19) and she was trying to show that women can get along just fine without having man interfere. The story represents a disdain for the way women are treated in some relationships and in society as well. "Her concern w...
Kate Chopin was born February 8, 1850 in St. Louis. She was raised by a single woman; this impacted her views in the family at an early age. She began her own family at a young age; Kate had a different method compare too many women in her time. As time progressed, she developed a bad habit of dressing inappropriately. Soon she started to publish stories about the experiences and stories of her interests such as women’s individuality and miserable
This author was born Katherine (Kate) O’Flaherty Chopin in February of 1850 to a father of Irish descent and a Creole (French settlers of the southern United States, esp. Louisiana) mother (Guilds 293). Chopin was a bicultural mixture of strength. Due to measures beyond her control, she grows up in a life surrounded by strong willed women. These ladies were passionate women Chopin loved and respected; her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. They each added their individual spice of life to a brew of pure womanhood. Thus, seasoning a woman that would become one of the most influential, controversial female authors in American history. Kate Chopin created genuine works exposing the innermost conflicts women of the late 1800’s were experiencing. The heroines of her fictional stories were strong, yet confused, women searching for a meaning behind the spirit that penetrated their very souls.
Kate Chopin was one of the most influential nineteenth century American fiction writers. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri on either one of three dates: February 8, 1851, February 8, 1850, or July 12, 1850, depending on the source. She once said that she was born in 1851, but her baptismal certificate states February 8, 1850 as her birthday (Inge, 2). There is also an indiscretion regarding the spelling of her name. Her full name is Katherine O’Flaherty Chopin, but one source spells her first name with a ‘C’ (Katherine, 1). Her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was an Irish immigrant who became a successful merchant in St. Louis. Her mother, Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, came from a wealthy aristocratic Creole family (Inge, 2). Kate Chopin was a student at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis. Here she learned the Catholic teachings and great intellectual discipline. She graduated from this French school in 1868 (Inge, 2). On June 9th in 1870, she married Oscar Chopin. Together the couple had six children: Jean (1871), Oscar (1873), George (1874), Frederick (1876), Felix (1878), and Lelia (1879) (Inge, 3).
The society of Grand Isle places many expectations on its women to belong to men and be subordinate to their children. Edna Pontellier's society, therefore, abounds with "mother-women," who "idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it to a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals" (689). The characters of Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz represent what society views as the suitable and unsuitable women figures. Mademoiselle Ratignolle is the ideal Grand Isle woman, a home-loving mother and a good wife. Mademoiselle Reisz is the old, unmarried, childless, musician who devoted her life to music instead of a man. Edna switches between the two identities until she awakens to the fact that she needs to be an individual, but encounters resistance from society. This begins the process of her awakening.
Guy de Maupassant, is one of the greatest writers in france, always writing short stories on negative topics. This writer has written the interesting tale of ´The Necklace´(1884) in where a woman loses a necklace that she borrowed and has to give it back. This writer really was a creative author since he didn't create any basic stories of love or comedy, but he uses other topics to interest his readers. He is said to be one of the most creative writers since he created dark stories, which some find humorous. He is also very wise with his quotes and gives meaning to all the short stories he makes. Guy de Maupassant, seems to be a writer who introduced a new dark genre in history, and is recognized for that.
Chopin’s use of imagery, characterization, and setting all help the reader develop her words into a mental film. If Chopin had not used these techniques throughout her story it would have been uninteresting, and would have left the reader confused and without a moral understanding of the story. Remembering to use these simple strategies in writing can improve a writer's work. Although it will not always be easy to include such devices in writing, and will take a bit of creativity, the effort is always worth the
... of race, class, gender and culture were very important in that time and Chopin makes sure to address those issues. Whenever someone reads a book, they can look further into the story and find a great deal of the ideas and beliefs of people of that time.
Chopin, fatherless at four, was certainly a product of her Creole heritage, and was strongly influenced by her mother and her maternal grandmother. Perhaps it is because she grew up in a female dominated environment that she was not a stereotypical product of her times and so could not conform to socially acceptable themes in her writing. Chopin even went so far as to assume the managerial role of her husband's business after he died in 1883. This behavior, in addition to her fascination with scientific principles, her upbringing, and her penchant for feminist characters would seem to indicate that individuality, freedom, and joy were as important to Chopin as they are to the characters in her stories. Yet it appears to be as difficult for critics to agree on Chopin's view of her own life as it is for them to accept the heroines of her stories. Per Seyersted believes that Chopin enjoyed living alone as an independent writer, but other critics have argued that Chopin was happily married and bore little resemblance to the characters in her stories (150-164).
Both stories were written by women, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin. But is this fact important to understand the aim of every story? Would they have had the same effect if the had been written by men? I will explore these matters.
Kate Chopin was a woman and a writer far ahead of her time. She was a realistic fiction writer and one of the leaders and inspirational people in feminism. Her life was tragic and full of irregular events. In fact, this unusual life had an enormous effect on her writings and career. She depicted the lifestyle of her time in her works. In most of her stories, people would find an expansion of her life’s events. In her two stories “The Storm” and “The Story of One Hour” and some of her other works she denoted a lot of her life’s events. Kate Chopin is one of those writers who were influenced by their life and surrounded environment in their fiction writing, and this was very clear in most of her works.
Most of her fiction is set in Louisiana and most of her best-known work focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women. Kate Chopin was influenced by Guy de Maupasaant. He was a French novelist of the nineteenth century and was considered one of the fathers of the modern short story. Kate Chopin describes his style as direct and simple and that, in his works, was life, not fiction. Besides, he used old fashioned techniques that created the art of story shorts. Putting together Guy and Kate, she had the capacity of perceive life and put it down on her novels in a very creative way. Among them, the most famous stories are: A Matter of Prejudice, A Respectable Woman, Desiree's Baby, which was written on November 24, 1892, and published in Vogue on January 14, 1893. It was the first of the nineteen Kate Chopin short stories that Vogue published. The Storm, which was written on July 19, 1898, and published in The complete work of Kate Chopin in 1969. This novel is about a woman whose husband and child are out in a rainy day and they could not return to home due to the storm. She deceives her husband with another man, Alcée, but, when her husband and her child returns, Alcée is not at home and Calixta acts as if nothing had happened. In addition, we can see that there is a kind of influence in The awakening due to these two reasons: