Chopin and Bambara: Two Short Story Writers Essay

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Kate Chopin, author of "The Story of an Hour"

Kate Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri (Clarke 1). Chopin's mother was of French extraction and the young Kate grew up in a bilingual household. Chopin's household was also bicultural, encompassing both the cultures of north and south: both supporters of slavery and anti-slavery advocates lived in Missouri; Chopin's family kept slaves and her half-brother fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War (Clarke 1). Kate's father was killed in a railroad accident when she was young, a feature which Chopin was later to deploy in "The Story of an Hour" in which the heroine Mrs. Mallard falsely -- and with surprising joy -- believes that her husband has been killed in a train wreck (Clarke 1).

Chopin married her husband Oscar Chopin when she was twenty. After a tour of Europe, the Chopins settled in Louisiana, where Oscar dealt in cotton, corn, sugar, and molasses. The city was bitterly divided racially in the years after the Civil War, during Reconstruction. Oscar was a Democrat and became a member of the White League (Clarke 1). Chopin was later to draw upon these experiences in her first novel, The Awakening, which is also set in Louisiana and features a woman named Edna Pontellier who is finally 'awakened' to the passion that has been lacking in her marriage. The Chopin family later relocated to Cloutierville. In 1882 Oscar succumbed to malaria, leaving Kate with the responsibility of raising the couple's six children (Clarke 1). Kate returned to her family home in St. Louis and began writing her first novel entitled At Fault as well as short fiction (Clarke 1). Her early works reflected her preoccupations with racially-divided New Orleans as well as the proper role of women in society.

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From 1889 onward, Chopin enjoyed some of her most productive literary years. Her stories began to appear in the most widely-read magazines in America. In 1891, she wrote one of her most-anthologized stories today, "Desiree's Baby" along with many others; in 1894 "The Story of an Hour" and "A Respectable Woman" was featured in Vogue and her first short story collection entitled Bayou Folk was published (Clarke 1). In 1899, her first mature novel The Awakening was published but while "a few critics praised the novel's artistry, but most were very negative, calling the book 'morbid,' 'unpleasant,' 'unhealthy,' 'sordid,' 'poison'" (Clarke 1). Critics took particular umbrage at the fact that the adulterous heroine was not in a 'bad' marriage, merely a sexually unfulfilling one and withdrew from her motherly duties as a result of her dissatisfaction. To 19th century critics, the idea that women had sexual desires and might even put them above their motherly responsibilities was abhorrent and unnatural. Feminists, however, later celebrated the novel as revolutionary.

Before the publishing of The Awakening, Chopin was largely regarded as a popular author of short stories which depicted an unusual part of American culture people knew little about. However, readers of works like "The Story of an Hour" should not have been surprised as her portrayal of marriage as a less-than-satisfying state in The Awakening. The novel remains controversial: "is she [Edna] a fallen woman, a bad mother, a selfish human being? Why does the character still, in an era where sexual openness is not totally condemned, point us toward a discussion of what makes a woman bad?" ("Kate Chopin," Women Writers). Chopin's belief in a women's right to her own pleasure remains radical in many eyes, even today.

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