Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was born as Katherine O’Flaherty to an Irish father and a French mother. Her father was a well-respected businessman and her mother a well-connected woman among the French community in St. Louis, Missouri where Chopin grew up. Chopin was one of five children, but the only one of the children to live into adulthood. While her father died in 1855, Chopin maintained a close relationship with her remaining family members—her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother. Chopin was an enthusiastic reader from an early age, and her love of poetry, fairy tales, and religious stories showed her literary passion. She married at age 20 and moved with her husband, Oscar Chopin, to New Orleans. The couple had six children, the last of which was born when Kate was 28. She was a young mother, and her early adulthood was devoted to married life. After the births of her children, Chopin’s family moved to Cloutierville, a tiny community in Louisiana. This setting became the source of inspiration for much of Chopin’s writing, particularly her exposure to and interest in the Creole culture that features in her stories. Oscar Chopin died in 1882, and while Kate attempted to run his business, which was drastically in debt, she abandoned the attempt after two years and moved her family back to St. Louis to rejoin her mother. Unfortunately Chopin’s mother died a year later, and Chopin suffered from depression after this succession of losses. Chopin turned to writing as a solace and a way to process her experiences, and by the 1890s she was writing and publishing frequently. She received little critical success during her lifetime, despite the recognition she has received posthumously. Her work was overlooked due to its local ideas and imagery, or resulted in controversy for its portrayal of women’s roles. Most criticized was her 1899 novel The Awakening, which is now recognized as an important early feminist text. Chopin died in 1904 at the age of 54 from a brain hemorrhage.