Bet-Chopin

=Kate Chopin (1850 - 1904)=
 * Catherine (Kate) O'Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 8, 1850
 * Kate grew up speaking both French and English and the influence of French life and literature on her thinking is noticeable throughout her fiction
 * She was mentored by woman--by her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother, as well as by the Sacred Heart nuns
 * Much of the fiction Kate wrote as an adult draws on the nurturing she received from women as she was growing up
 * Her early life was rather traumatic; In 1855, her father was killed in a railroad accident, in 1863 her beloved French-speaking great grandmother died, and her half brother was captured by Union forces during the Civil War and died of typhoid fever
 * Married Oscar Chopin in 1870
 * Died August 22, 1904 due to a cerebral hemorrhage

Considered to be a modern writer because of her awareness of the complexities of truth adn complications of freedom
 * __Genre__**
 * Bildungsroman: novel of intellectual, spiritual, or moral evolution
 * **Kunstlerroman:** artistic realization or development


 * __Distinguishing Traits__**
 * Most of her fiction is set in Louisianna and focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women
 * Gives unsparing truth about women's submerged life (was a pioneer in amoral treatment of sexuality, divorce, and women's urge for existential authority

Novels: Short Stories: ^ both received good reviews from critics -about 1/3 of her short stories were written for children -her novels were mostly forgotten after her death in 1904, but in the 1920's her short stories began to appear in anthologies
 * __Works__**
 * __At Fault__ (1890) - early novel, not noticed by the public
 * __The Awakening__ (1899) - widely condemned, critics called it morbid, vulgar, and disagreeable
 * __Bayou Folk__ (1894)
 * __A Night in Acadie__ (1897)
 * __A Vocation and a Voice__ - cancelledby publisher and did not appear as a seperate volume until 1991


 * __Works Cited:__**

//Kate Chopin: The Awakening, The Storm, Stories, Biography//. Web. 18 Apr. 2010.[].

//SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides//. Web. 18 Apr. 2010. <[]>.