Kate Chopin (1850-1904)
We're heading forward – the 19th Century: the Victorian era in Britain with Jane Austen and the Bronté sisters presenting strict moral values in their literature. Meanwhile Margaret Fuller and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote and fought for the various rights on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. But it is also the time of Guy de Maupassant protégé of Gustave Flaubert and favourite French author of this month’s female writer, Kate Chopin.
Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Her father was a successful Irish businessman who died when she was only five years old. She grew up with her mother, a pious Catholic, having close contact with her French Canadian grandmother and great-grandmother. Her great-grandmother, a strong-willed storyteller, had a significant influence on her and she became a voracious reader of all sorts of stories and books.
At the age of 20, Kate married Oscar Chopin and moved to New Orleans. She had six children by the age of 28 and became a widow at 32. Persuaded by her mother she returned to St. Louis. Only a year later also her mother died leaving Kate essentially alone with six children. She started a literary career writing short stories, articles and translations, publishing in various periodicals. She was depicting the Cajun and Creole life surrounding her, making her a local color writer. She adopted the style of French contemporaries as Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant and their realism writing in a non-judgemental narrative style. It was especially her collection Bayou Folk (1894) that won her national recognition, making the Catholic Creoles, their customs and speech memorable to all Americans. A second collection, A Night in Acadie, increased her reputation. Yet, her major novel, The Awakening (1899) was too openhearted in its sexual coming to consciousness of the female protagonist and raised hostility by most critiques. Though the 'new woman' demanding social, economic and political equality was on its way (remember it’s Women’s Day on 8th March!), Kate's protagonist was one step ahead of time. It was described as 'trite and vulgar' dismissing Kate's sublime art of character development: complex and independent not following suit the current moral ideas as the above named British authors did. Similar to it the short story The Storm (quoted above) has been written in 1898 but only published in 1969 due to the daring characterisation. Bear in mind that the two lovers presented are both married to another partner…what would have ‘Elisabeth Bennet’ of Pride and Prejudice thought of that?
But it is not only the scandals that make Kate’s stories interesting to read: in The Storm, the protagonist develops along the upcoming storm, thunder and lightning form the perfect background of the release of the sexual tension between the two characters, and the dénouement having everyone at ease with the situation. Should Kate have written plays, she could have been a successor of Shakespeare’s comedies. Nevertheless, she is not only some generations farther but also transformed her stories by the usage of theatrical naturalism making her a fine and exceptional local color author. Certainly worth to rediscover this ‘modern’ Creole author!
Again a nice anecdote to be mentioned to modern readers: it is mentioned that she was writing in the midst of her children on a 'lapboard'…