kate chopin short biography

Biography of Kate Chopin, American Author and Protofeminist

Missouri Historical Society / public domain

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Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850–August 22, 1904) was an American author whose short stories and novels explored pre- and post-war Southern life. Today, she is considered a pioneer of early feminist literature. She is best known for her novel The Awakening , a depiction of a woman's struggle for selfhood that was immensely controversial during Chopin's lifetime.

Fast Facts: Kate Chopin

• Known For : American author of novels and short stories
• Born : February 8, 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
• Parents: Thomas O'Flaherty and Eliza Faris O'Flaherty
• Died : August 22, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
• Education : Sacred Heart Academy (from ages 5-18)
• Selected Works : "Désirée's Baby" (1893), "The Story of an Hour" (1894), "The Storm" (1898), The Awakening (1899)
• Spouse: Oscar Chopin (m. 1870, died 1882)
• Children: Jean Baptiste, Oscar Charles, George Francis, Frederick, Felix Andrew, Lélia
• Notable Quote : “To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts—absolute gifts—which have not been acquired by one’s own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist much possess the courageous soul … the brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.”

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Kate Chopin was the third of five children born to Thomas O’Flaherty, a successful businessman who had immigrated from Ireland, and his second wife Eliza Faris, a woman of Creole and French-Canadian descent. Kate had siblings and half-siblings (from her father’s first marriage), but she was the family's only surviving child; her sisters died in infancy and her half-brothers died as young adults.

Raised Roman Catholic, Kate attended Sacred Heart Academy, an institution run by nuns, from age five to her graduation at age eighteen. In 1855, her schooling was interrupted by the death of her father, who was killed in a railway accident when a bridge collapsed. Kate returned home for two years to live with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of whom were widows. Kate was tutored by her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville. Charleville was a significant figure in her own right: she was a businesswoman and the first woman in St. Louis to legally separate from her husband .

After two years, Kate was allowed to return to school, where she had the support of her best friend, Kitty Garesche, and her mentor, Mary O’Meara. However, after the Civil War , Garesche and her family were forced to leave St. Louis because they had supported the Confederacy ; this loss left Kate in a state of loneliness.

In June 1870, at age 20, Kate married Oscar Chopin, a cotton merchant five years her senior. The couple moved to New Orleans, a location that influenced much of her late writing. In eight years, between 1871 and 1879, the couple had six children: five sons (Jean Baptiste, Oscar Charles, George Francis, Frederick, and Felix Andrew) and one daughter, Lélia. Their marriage was, by all accounts, a happy one, and Oscar apparently admired his wife’s intelligence and capability.

Widowhood and Depression

By 1879, the family had moved to the rural community of Cloutierville, following the failure of Oscar Chopin’s cotton business . Oscar died of swamp fever three years later, leaving his wife with significant debts of over $42,000 (the equivalent of approximately $1 million today).

Left to support herself and their children, Chopin took over the business. She was rumored to flirt with local businessmen, and allegedly had an affair with a married farmer. Ultimately, she could not salvage the plantation or the general store, and in 1884, she sold the businesses and moved back to St. Louis with some financial help from her mother.

Soon after Chopin settled back in St. Louis, her mother died suddenly. Chopin fell into a depression. Her obstetrician and family friend, Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer, was the one to suggest writing as a form of therapy, as well as a possible source of income. By 1889, Chopin had taken the suggestion and thus began her writing career.

Scribe of Short Stories (1890-1899)

• "Beyond the Bayou" (1891)
• "A No-Account Creole" (1891)
• "At the 'Cadian Ball" (1892)
• Bayou Folk (1894)
• "The Locket" (1894)
• "The Story of an Hour" (1894) 
• "Lilacs" (1894)
• "A Respectable Woman" (1894)
• "Madame Celestin's Divorce" (1894)
• "Désirée's Baby" (1895) 
• "Athenaise" (1896)
• A Night in Acadie (1897)
• "A Pair of Silk Stockings" (1897)
• "The Storm" (1898) 

Chopin’s first published work was a short story printed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . Her early novel, At Fault , was rejected by an editor, so Chopin printed copies privately at her own expense. In her early work, Chopin addressed themes and experiences with which she was familiar: the North American 19-century Black activist movement, the complexities of the Civil War, the stirrings of feminism, and more.

Chopin's short stories included successes such as "A Point at Issue!", "A No-Account Creole", and "Beyond the Bayou.” Her work was published both in local publications and, eventually, national periodicals including the New York Times , The Atlantic , and Vogue . She also wrote non-fiction articles for local and national publications, but her focus remained on works of fiction.

During this era, “local color” pieces—works that featured folk tales, Southern dialect, and regional experiences—were gaining popularity. Chopin’s short stories were typically considered part of that movement rather than evaluated on their literary merits.

"Désirée's Baby,” published in 1893, explored the topics of racial injustice and interracial relationships (called "miscegenation" at the time) in French Creole Louisiana. The story highlighted the racism of the era, when possessing any African ancestry meant facing discrimination and danger from law and society. At the time Chopin was writing, this topic was generally kept out of public discourse; the story is an early example of her unflinching depictions of controversial topics of her day.

Thirteen stories, including “Madame Celestin’s Divorce,” were published in 1893. The following year, “ The Story of an Hour ,” about a newly widowed woman’s emotions, was first published in Vogue ; it went on to become one of Chopin's most famous short stories. Later that year, Bayou Folk , a collection of 23 short stories, was published. Chopin’s short stories, of which there were around a hundred, were generally well-received during her lifetime, especially when compared with her novels.

The Awakening and Critical Frustrations (1899-1904)

• The Awakening (1899)
• "The Gentleman from New Orleans" (1900)
• "A Vocation and a Voice" (1902)

In 1899, Chopin published the novel The Awakening , which would become her best-known work. The novel explores the struggle to formulate an independent identity as a woman in the late 19th century.

At the time of its publication, The Awakening was widely criticized and even censored for its exploration of female sexuality and questioning of restrictive gender norms. The St. Louis Republic called the novel "poison." Other critics praised the writing but condemned the novel on moral grounds, such as The Nation , which suggested that Chopin had wasted her talents and disappointed readers by writing about such “unpleasantness."

Following The Awakening ’s critical trouncing, Chopin’s next novel was canceled, and she returned to writing short stories. Chopin was discouraged by the negative reviews and never entirely recovered. The novel itself faded into obscurity and eventually went out of print. (Decades later, the very qualities that offended so many 19th century readers made The Awakening a feminist classic when it was rediscovered in the 1970s.)

Following The Awakening , Chopin continued to publish a few more short stories, but they were not entirely successful. She lived off of her investments and the inheritance left to her by her mother. Her publication of The Awakening damaged her social standing, and she found herself quite lonely once again.

Literary Styles and Themes

Chopin was raised in a largely female environment during an era of great change in America. These influences were evident in her works. Chopin did not identify as a feminist or suffragist, but her work is considered "protofeminist" because it took individual women seriously as human beings and complex, three-dimensional characters. In her time, women were often portrayed as two-dimensional figures with few (if any) desires outside of marriage and motherhood. Chopin's depictions of women struggling for independence and self-realization were unusual and groundbreaking.

Over time, Chopin’s work demonstrated different forms of female resistance to patriarchal myths , taking on different angles as themes in her work. Scholar Martha Cutter, for instance, traces the evolution of her characters’ resistance and the reactions they get from others within the world of the story. In some of Chopin’s earlier short stories, she presents the reader with women who overly resist patriarchal structures and are disbelieved or dismissed as crazy. In later stories, Chopin’s characters evolve: they adapt quieter, covert resistance strategies to achieve feminist ends without being immediately noticed and dismissed.

Race also played a major thematic role in Chopin’s works. Growing up in the era of enslavement and the Civil War, Chopin observed the role of race and the consequences of that institution and racism. Topics like miscegenation were often kept out of public discourse, but Chopin put her observations of racial inequality in her stories, such as "Désirée's Baby."

Chopin wrote in a naturalistic style and cited the influence of French writer Guy de Maupassant . Her stories were not exactly autobiographical, but they were drawn from her sharp observations of the people, places, and ideas that surrounded her. Because of the immense influence of her surroundings on her work—especially her observations of pre- and post-war Southern society—Chopin was sometimes pigeonholed as a regional writer.

On August 20, 1904, Chopin suffered a brain hemorrhage and collapsed during a trip to the St. Louis World’s Fair. She died two days later on August 22, at the age of 54. Chopin was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, where her grave is marked with a simple stone with her name and dates of birth and death.

Although Chopin was criticized during her lifetime, she eventually became recognized as a leading early feminist writer. Her work was rediscovered during the 1970s , when scholars evaluated her work from a feminist perspective, noting Chopin's characters' resistance to patriarchal structures.

Chopin is also occasionally categorized alongside Emily Dickinson and Louisa May Alcott, who also wrote complex stories of women attempting to achieve fulfillment and self-understanding while pushing back against societal expectations. These characterizations of women who sought independence were uncommon at the time and thus represented a new frontier of women's writing.

Today, Chopin's work—particularly The Awakening —is frequently taught in American literature classes. The Awakening was also loosely adapted into a 1991 film called Grand Isle. In 1999, a documentary called Kate Chopin: A Reawakening told the story of Chopin's life and work. Chopin herself been featured less frequently in mainstream culture than other authors of her era, but her influence on the history of literature is undeniable. Her groundbreaking work paved the way for future feminist authors to explore topics of women's selfhood, oppression, and inner lives.

• Cutter, Martha. "Losing the Battle but Winning the War: Resistance to Patriarchal Discourse in Kate Chopin's Short Fiction". Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers . 68.
• Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State UP, 1985.
• Toth, Emily. Kate Chopin . William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1990.
• Walker, Nancy. Kate Chopin: A Literary Life . Palgrave Publishers, 2001.
•  “$42,000 in 1879 → 2019 | Inflation Calculator.” U.S. Official Inflation Data, Alioth Finance, 13 Sep. 2019, https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1879?amount=42000.
• Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening' of Edna Pontellier
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Kate Chopin

(1850-1904)

Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri. She began to write after her husband's death. Among her more than 100 short stories are "Désirée's Baby" and "Madame Celestin's Divorce." The Awakening (1899), a realistic novel about the sexual and artistic awakening of a young mother who abandons her family, was initially condemned for its sexual frankness but was later acclaimed. Chopin died in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 22, 1904.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Kate Chopin
• Birth Year: 1850
• Birth date: February 8, 1850
• Birth State: Missouri
• Birth City: St. Louis
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Short-story writer and novelist Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening, a novel about a young mother who abandons her family, initially condemned but later acclaimed.
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• Occupations
• Death Year: 1904
• Death date: August 22, 1904
• Death State: Missouri
• Death City: St. Louis
• Death Country: United States

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Kate Chopin Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/kate-chopin
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 16, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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• The Awakening

Kate Chopin

• Literature Notes
• Kate Chopin Biography
• Book Summary
• About The Awakening
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Chapters 7-8
• Chapters 9-11
• Chapters 12-14
• Chapters 27-28
• Chapters 30-31
• Chapters 33-35
• Character Analysis
• Edna Pontellier
• Léonce Pontellier
• Robert Lebrun
• Mademoiselle Reisz
• Character Map
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Personal Background

Kate Chopin was born Catherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on February 8, 1850. Her mother, Eliza Faris, came from an old French family that lived outside of St. Louis. Her father, Thomas, was a highly successful Irish-born businessman; he died when Kate was five years old. Chopin grew up in a household dominated by women: her mother, great-grandmother, and the female slaves her mother owned, who took care of the children. Young Chopin spent a lot of time in the attic reading such masters as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and the Brontës. Her great-grandmother taught her to speak French and play piano, and related stories about her great-great-grandmother, a woman who ran her own business, was separated from her husband, and had children while unmarried. This woman great example for young Katie of a woman's strength, potential for independence, and the real workings of life's passions.

Like the rest of her family, Chopin grew up strongly pro-Confederate, a sentiment enhanced by her beloved half-brother's death in the Civil War. In fact, 13-year-old Chopin was arrested when she tore a Union flag from her family's porch that had been hung there by the triumphant Union troops. She became known as St. Louis's "Littlest Rebel" — a trait that marked Chopin's behavior as an adult, when she attended her own interests more closely than society's arbitrary and sexist dictates.

Education, Marriage, and Children

Chopin attended a St. Louis Catholic girl's school, Academy of the Sacred Heart, from ages five to eighteen. There, the nuns continued the female-oriented education begun at home by her great-grandmother, providing a forum for their students to express their thoughts and share their opinions.

After finishing her education at Academy of the Sacred Heart, Chopin entered St. Louis society, where she met Oscar Chopin, a French-born cotton factor (the middleman between cotton grower and buyer). She married Oscar in June 1870, and they moved to New Orleans. Between 1871 and 1879, she had six children. Like Edna and Léonce Pontellier, the Chopins vacationed during summers on Grand Isle, to avoid the cholera outbreaks in the city of New Orleans. Also like Edna, Chopin took long walks alone in New Orleans, often while smoking cigarettes, much to the astonishment of passersby.

When Oscar's cotton brokerage business failed due to drought and his mismanagement, they moved to the small French village of Cloutierville, Louisiana where Oscar had family and a small amount of land. Chopin was distinguished in this tiny town by her habit of riding horses astride rather than sidesaddle, dressing too fashionably for her surroundings, and smoking cigarettes — all of which were considered unladylike. Many of the locals found their way into her later stories.

Oscar ran a general store in Cloutierville until he died in 1882 of malaria. Upon his death, which left his family in great debt, Chopin ran the store and their small plantation, a highly unusual move for widows at the time. Not until 1884 did Chopin take the usual course for widows, when she and her children moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother. Before she left Cloutierville, Chopin had an affair with a local married man who is said to be the prototype for Alcée Arobin in The Awakening .

Her Later Years

A year after Chopin moved her family back to St. Louis, she began to write, publishing first a piece of music called "Polka for Piano" in 1888 and then a poem called "If It Might Be" in 1889. She then turned her attention toward fiction and concentrated on that genre for the rest of her life.

Resenting the expectation that she was to spend her days making social calls on other women, Chopin began St. Louis' first literary salon, a social gathering one evening a week where both women and men could gather for some intelligent conversation. Through these salons, she fulfilled the social requirement to entertain regularly but did so under her own terms. A benefit of these salons was professional advancement: Publishers and reviewers alike attended Chopin's salons, providing a fertile network for the ambitious Chopin to pursue additional publication opportunities.

Chopin published almost 100 short stories, three novels, and one play within twelve years — after she began writing, she pursued it with the same business sense she displayed while running her husband's general store after he died.

In her last years, health problems made writing difficult, although many people attributed the decrease in her writing as a result of the storm of negative publicity that accompanied The Awakening 's publication in 1899. Her death came suddenly; she died on August 22, 1904 of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

Literary Writing

Chopin's first short story was published in 1889; she began her first novel, At Fault , that year as well. Chopin was assiduous about submitting manuscripts and cultivating relationships with influential editors. Her stories appeared in prestigious magazines such as Vogue and Atlantic Monthly , and two collections of her short stories were published in book form, as Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Both of those books were well received, although regarded by many reviewers and critics primarily as "regionalist" work, meaning it had little literary value beyond the portrait it presented of the Louisiana/Missouri region.

Her most famous work, The Awakening , appeared in 1899. As in much of Chopin's writing, this novel concerns itself with issues of identity and morality. Unlike the rest of her work, it created a tremendous controversy. While many reviewers deemed it a worthy novel, an equal and more vocal number condemned it, not simply for Edna's behavior, but for her lack of remorse about her behavior — and Chopin's refusal to judge Edna either way.

A well-regarded author at the time of her death, despite the controversy surrounding The Awakening , Chopin's work fell into obscurity for many years as regional literature fell out of literary favor. Chopin's work did not come to the attention of the established literary world until 1969, after almost 70 years of obscurity, with the publication of Per Seyersted's critical biography and his edition of her complete works. The 1960s feminist movement in America had a great deal to do with her new-found fame as well; that movement brought to attention the work of women who had been excluded from the literary canon by its male creators. Today, her work is part of the canon of American literature.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Kate Chopin

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Kate Chopin by Bernard Koloski LAST REVIEWED: 12 April 2023 LAST MODIFIED: 21 March 2024 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0007

In the United States and abroad, Kate Chopin (b. 1850–d. 1904) is recognized as one of America’s essential 19th-century authors. Her fiction is widely taught in universities and secondary schools. It is explored in hundreds of scholarly books, essays, and dissertations—as well as in the popular media. It has been made into plays, films, songs, dances, graphic fiction, and an opera. And it has been translated into twenty-some languages. But it was not always so. Chopin was born Catherine O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri, to a mother of French descent and a father born in Ireland. She grew up speaking both French and English and studied at a Roman Catholic academy with nuns schooled in French intellectual traditions. In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin, traveled to Europe on her honeymoon, and settled in New Orleans, Louisiana. She bore five sons and a daughter. In 1879, after her husband’s business failed, the family relocated to the Natchitoches area of northern Louisiana, but in 1882 Oscar died, and shortly after Chopin moved with her children back to St. Louis, where she interacted with a group of progressive philosophers, journalists, editors, educators, and others. She began writing fiction in the late 1880s, drawing on her intimate knowledge of the lives of Louisiana Creoles, Acadians, African Americans, Native Americans, and other groups. Her novel At Fault (1890) received little attention, but she had significant success with her short stories, placing nineteen of them in Vogue , twelve in Youth’s Companion , and others in the Atlantic Monthly , the Century , Harper’s Young People , and additional magazines. She published two collections of stories, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897), both of which were praised by book reviewers. About a third of her hundred-some short stories were published in, submitted to, or intended for children’s or family magazines. By the late 1890s, Chopin’s fiction was popular among American readers. But her novel The Awakening (1899) was denounced by reviewers, who called it “unhealthy,” “sordid,” “vulgar,” and “poison”—in part because it dealt with extramarital sex—and Chopin’s work was mostly ignored for half a century, experiencing a remarkable revival beginning only in the 1960s, long after her death. Today, Kate Chopin’s novels and stories are celebrated for their graceful, sensitive treatment of women’s lives and are discussed by scholars exploring gender, race, literary genres, religion and an array of other subjects.

Readers new to Kate Chopin have a choice of good materials for coming to know her work, including materials by scholars from France, Norway, the United States, and Great Britain. Chopin became popular for our times only in the 1970s, after her fiction was championed first by a Frenchman, then by a Norwegian, and then by feminists and others in the United States and the United Kingdom. For the next twenty-five years, scholars occupied themselves writing introductions to her work, and many of their efforts remain valuable today. Seyersted 1969 is the most influential and the best place to begin, because it identifies many of the subjects, themes, and approaches that have dominated Chopin scholarship for decades. Ewell 1986 offers clear, straightforward, rewarding readings of Chopin’s fiction. Walker 2001 ties Chopin’s fiction closely to her life. Perrin-Chenour 2002 , writing in incisive French, outlines a unified approach to understanding Chopin’s breaks with mainstream thought in the 1890s. The Kate Chopin International Society website draws upon the insights of dozens of scholars and is a trustworthy starting point, especially for readers attuned to the Internet. And Beer 2008 gathers together fresh essays by practiced British and American scholars that bring newcomers up to date on the field of Chopin literary criticism.

Beer, Janet, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Especially strong collection of Chopin critical essays by eleven experienced scholars from the United Kingdom and the United States. Explores both the novels and the short stories, as well as important subjects and themes, including childhood, race, fashion, and literary innovation. Approaches range from biography to contemporary French feminist theory. An excellent orientation for scholars new to Chopin studies.

Ewell, Barbara C. Kate Chopin . New York: Ungar, 1986.

Persuasive study presenting Chopin as social critic and artist. Explores in detail the novels and most popular stories. Insightful and balanced in presenting the career of the writer and the development and significance of her fiction.

Kate Chopin International Society .

The website of the Kate Chopin International Society, a network among scholars and a bridge between scholars and others, offering readers new to Chopin accurate, accessible, up-to-date information on her works, subjects, themes, and biography—and providing scholars extensive bibliographies in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, along with a guide to Chopin archives and news about academic conferences and Chopin’s fiction featured in popular culture.

Perrin-Chenour, Marie-Claude. Kate Chopin: Ruptures . Paris: Belin, 2002.

Inspired by the passion of Cyrille Arnavon, who translated The Awakening into French in 1952 and guided the Norwegian Per Seyersted to his groundbreaking work on Chopin, describes Chopin’s explorations of transitions in history, literary themes and styles, and epistemology. Argues that Chopin was successful with her early local-color efforts but ahead of the times with her later broader ones. An important volume. Available only in French.

Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

By far the most influential book about Kate Chopin’s works. Discusses in depth Chopin’s novels and many of her most popular short stories, placing them in the realm of women’s literature. Describes Chopin’s life and the literary influences on her and points to subjects and themes that maintain their relevance and resonance today. A singularly important study—accessible for students; critical for scholars.

Walker, Nancy A. Kate Chopin: A Literary Life . Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2001.

Biographically focused discussion of Chopin’s work, with explorations of many of her short stories and essays. Includes two chapters on Chopin’s life before she began her writing career.

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Kate Chopin

Short stories.

Kate Chopin (1850 - 1904), born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1850, is considered one of the first feminist authors of the 20th century. She is often credited for introducing the modern feminist literary movement. Chopin was following a rather conventional path as a housewife until an unfortunate tragedy-- the untimely death of her husband-- altered the course of her life. She became a talented and prolific short story writer, influenced primarily by the French short story author, Guy de Maupassant . She is best known for her novel The Awakening (1899), a hauntingly prescient tale of a woman unfulfilled by the mundane yet highly celebrated "feminine role," and her painful realization that the constraints of her gender blocked her ability to seek a more fulfilling life. Many of her works are featured in our Feminist Literature - Study Guide

Some argue that modern feminism was borne on her pages, and one needs to look no further than her 1894 short story The Story of an Hour to support the claim. We encourage students and teachers to use our The Story of An Hour - Study Guide to better understand the work and its role in launching modern feminist literature. The reader should note the relationship of the leading figure in that story to the circumstances of Kate Chopin’s own life, where the death of her own husband started a process that would ultimately push her beyond the roles of wife and mother of six and on to the life of an artist. After The Story of an Hour , a reader would do well to balance the scale and turn their attention to a work that embraces rather than challenging conventional roles for women: Regret is a short story blessed with love and borne from a mother's heart.

Desiree's Baby (1893), and The Storm (1898), which is a sequel to her story At the 'Cadian Ball (1892), are also among her most celebrated short stories.

Chopin's writing career began after her husband died on their Louisiana plantation in 1882 and she was struggling financially. Her mother convinced Kate to move back to St. Louis, but died shortly thereafter leaving her alone. Now Chopin, suffering from the loss of her husband and mother, was advised by her obstetrician and family friend to fight her state of depression by taking up writing as a source of therapeutic healing, a way to focus her energy and provide Chopin with a source of income. She took the advice to heart.

Chopin embraced a number of writing styles, taking into account her ancestry of Irish and French descent, and her years with Creole and Cajun influences in Louisiana. Slavery and women's rights were realities that she incorporated in many of her stories and sketches, portraying women in a less than conventional manner, with individual wants and needs. Perhaps in many ways autobiographical, her exploration of women's independence was not celebrated until many years later. Chopin was in many ways, a woman before her time.

Readers interested in the feminist aspects of Kate Chopin's works will also wish to investigate plays and short stories from Susan Glaspell and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's semi-autobiographical sketch The Yellow Wallpaper .

But it would be a grave mistake to dismiss Chopin as exclusively "a feminist " writer. She was a first-class writer whose ability to raise life from a blank page knows few equals. Prepare your heart and your brain before reading Kate Chopin , she demands both.

Visit American History in Literature , The Story of An Hour - Study Guide , and the African American Library for more details about the writing and figures who helped shape America.

• Time Periods

Kate Chopin (1850–1904)

Kate Chopin began and ended her life in St. Louis, with an interlude as a young wife and mother in New Orleans and rural Louisiana. Her stories of Creole life in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, established her as a talented local-color writer in the southern tradition. Some of her lesser-known stories explored the complexities of the emerging urban culture of the late nineteenth century. The Awakening , her second novel, won her a place in history, both as a writer and as a critic of women’s roles in the family and the community. Her early life and her mature experience in St. Louis influenced her perception of the human condition. A community of writers and intellectuals in St. Louis supported and shaped her literary life. Louisiana provided the setting for much of her fiction, but St. Louis provided the environment in which she created an important body of work.

Biographer Emily Toth has convincingly argued that Catherine O’Flaherty was born on February 8, 1850, not 1851, as previous biographers believed. Her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was a successful Irish-born businessman with a son from a previous marriage. Her mother, Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, was the daughter of a French family with a history dating back to the founding of St. Louis. A great-grandmother, Victoire Verdun Charleville, shared stories of Kate’s Creole ancestors, which influenced Chopin’s later Creole tales. The O’Flaherty family owned slaves and occupied a handsome Greek Revival–style home. A neighbor, Kitty Garesche, became a schoolmate and lifelong friend. Kitty and Kate attended Sacred Heart Academy, a convent school. Kate left school for two years after her father’s death in November 1855 in the railroad disaster on the Gasconade Bridge that killed thirty prominent St. Louis citizens. Kate’s half brother, George, and her beloved great-grandmother both passed away in 1863. While St. Louis seethed with divisions during the Civil War period, Kate O’ Flaherty returned to school and graduated from the Sacred Heart Academy in 1868. As a student she read widely and began writing diary entries, poems, and short stories.

After her marriage to Oscar Chopin in 1870, Kate Chopin left St. Louis and began raising a family in Louisiana. Apparently, the couple spent several years in New Orleans before settling in Cloutierville, in Natchitoches Parish, where Oscar Chopin’s family had long owned a plantation. There they lived in a spacious timber-frame home with front and rear verandas. The landscape and the people of central Louisiana deeply impressed Kate Chopin and inspired many of her later published stories. Her Creole ancestry helped her to understand and sympathize with her Louisiana neighbors. Scholars have speculated about the extent to which the author’s own married life resembled the sad marriage in The Awakening , but there is no definitive answer to this question. Unlike the book’s character Leonce Pontellier, Oscar Chopin suffered recurrent fevers, probably aggravated by the moist climate and lack of medical services in rural Louisiana. In December 1882 he died.

A widow and the mother of six children, Kate Chopin returned to St. Louis in 1884 and there began her writing career. In 1889 the Chicago magazine America introduced her to the public by printing her poem “If It Might Be.” A local editor accepted her first published story that same year for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . Other local journals, including William Marion Reedy ’s St. Louis Mirror and the St. Louis Criterion , carried her stories and essays. At her own expense she published her first novel, At Fault , in 1890. National magazines, including Vogue and Atlantic , carried her stories in the 1890s. Critics warmly praised the collection of Creole tales published as Bayou Folk in 1894. The stories in Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie , published in 1897, established Chopin as a local-color writer with a gift for characterization.

Chopin’s Creole stories found a ready audience, partly because they did not challenge accepted images of southern life. In the bayou landscape of these stories, husbands could be cruel and wives could lead complex emotional lives, but they remained within social bonds defined by custom. Racial and class divisions limited interaction. In her famous story “Desiree’s Baby,” Chopin confronted the difficult issue of race, but failed to transcend common fears and stereotypes. Armand Aubigny accuses his wife, Desiree, of being black and bearing him a black child. Desiree, distraught, runs away through fields where black workers picked cotton. Unable to live with his rejection, she disappears, presumably ending her own life. Armand then discovers that his forebears, not Desiree’s, were black. Chopin presented the story as tragic irony, but did not clearly reject the racial ideology that caused Desiree’s death.

At Fault , Chopin’s first novel, took a more critical look at American life in the nineteenth century. Fanny Hosmer, an unattractive female character, exemplifies the alienation and futility of some middle­class women’s existence. Fanny is bored, shallow, and hopelessly alcoholic. Her husband, David, flees from her and her troubles to the world of Thérèse La Firme, a Creole widow in rural Louisiana. In contrast to the hard reality of St. Louis, the world of the bayou seems dreamlike, idyllic. Fanny, who represents the complexities of the modern city, simplifies matters for David and Thérèse by drowning in a flood. The bayou romance softens the novel. Nevertheless, the book offers a gritty portrait of an indolent middle-class woman, adrift in the city. Publishers showed no interest. Critics generally disliked or dismissed the self-published book.

Chopin spent her most creative years in the heart of a modern industrial city. In 1886, the year after her mother’s death, Chopin moved to a house on Morgan Street (now Delmar). Her neighbors included artists, musicians, tradesmen, and managers—people on the way up or down in a whirl of capitalistic enterprise. The David and Fanny Hosmers of the world passed by her doorstep. Robert E. Lee Gibson, a poet and the head clerk of the St. Louis Insane Asylum, became her ardent admirer. Logan Uriah Reavis , who wrote books promoting St. Louis as the future capital of the United States, wandered the streets in baggy clothes and dirty shirts. Chopin could ride the streetcar to every corner of her city or sit by her window and almost literally watch the city grow.

In stories with St. Louis settings, the author revealed a keen understanding of urban pretensions and reality. The central character in “A Pair of Silk Stockings” suddenly finds fifteen dollars and squanders it on all the temptations of St. Louis in the 1890s: shopping in a department store, dining in a restaurant, attending a matinee, and riding a cable car for miles. She enjoys her guilty pleasures, but her life seems purposeless. The title character in ‘‘The Blind Man” ambles through the city selling pencils. As he turns a corner, a speeding streetcar screeches to a halt. A prominent businessman who fails to see the car coming from the other direction dies under its wheels. The blind man wanders on, like the city itself, unaffected by the tragedy.

In “Miss McEnders,” an affluent woman does charity work among poor factory laborers, but responds coldly to her dressmaker, who reveals that she had an illegitimate child. McEnders suffers a crisis of conscience when she learns some hard truths about the questionable source of her father’s wealth. In these stories with urban settings, Chopin questions the materialism and moral blindness of modern society.

Chopin’s second novel, The Awakening , published in 1899, portrays the inner life of a woman who rejects her role as a businessman’s ornamental wife, but fails to define a place for herself in a cruelly judgmental community. Edna Pontellier’s closest friend is a woman who glories in motherhood, devoting all her energies to raising her children. Another woman friend lives the solitary life of a dedicated musician, rejecting companionship and pouring all her emotions into her art. Edna admires each of these women, but she cannot be like them. Leonce, her husband, regards her as a part of his household, one of his possessions, but not as a woman at the center of his life. Robert, the man she had loved, draws away from her out of fear and conventionality. A third man, who becomes her lover, offers her no fulfillment. A physician in the novel hints that he has dealt with other troubled, rebellious women like Edna. But Edna fails to connect with any of these possibly sympathetic souls. She possesses the courage to defy society’s rules, but she is unable to find a way to live in opposition to them. Feeling completely alone and finding no other path to liberation, Edna commits suicide. The novel challenged conventional values and shocked many critics.

Scathing reviews, condemning the novel as immoral, gave The Awakening the aura of a banned book. In fact, the book may never have been banned. Historians perpetuated the story, based on oral testimony, that the St. Louis Mercantile Library removed The Awakening from circulation. But Per Seyersted, an important Chopin biographer, questioned the story of the book’s banning. In twenty years of research, he found no documentation of the incident. Frequent retelling of the book-banning anecdote created an image of Chopin as a lonely iconoclast, rejected by her St. Louis neighbors—an image that distorted the truth.

Although she challenged accepted mores, Chopin was never as lonely as her heroine Edna Pontellier. Throughout her life she had numerous friends and supporters in her native city. Her connections with her mother’s family, her girlhood associates, and her own children remained strong throughout her life. Dr. Frederick Kohlbenheyer, her personal physician and intellectual companion, read many of her manuscripts. Kohlbenheyer had connections to the St. Louis literary establishment through an association with publisher Joseph Pulitzer . John A. Dillon , editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , supported women’s rights and encouraged Chopin’s literary efforts. William Marion Reedy, the eccentric editor of the St. Louis Mirror , befriended the author and publicly praised her talent. The Mirror ’s reviewer vilified The Awakening , but a circle of close friends remained her champions to the end of her life. Sue V. Moore, a local editor, staunchly rebuffed the critics and came to the author’s defense. Local editors continued to accept her writings. Kate Chopin became a charter member of the Wednesday Club in 1890 and continued to associate with the intelligent and affluent women who made up its membership. She read “Ti Demon,” a Creole story, at a club meeting in November 1899, months after critics expressed shock at the content of The Awakening .

Sympathetic scholars have portrayed Kate Chopin in her final years as a tragic figure who failed to draw parallels between herself and Edna Pontellier, who chose death over life in a society that refused to let her grow. While Chopin produced no book-length work after The Awakening , she continued writing, publishing, and participating in the social life of her home city. The St. Louis Mirror , the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , and the St. Louis Republic published several of her stories and articles between 1899 and 1904. National magazines such as Vogue and Youth’s Companion continued to print her work.

Chopin’s death coincided with a celebration of progress, the St. Louis World’s Fair . By all accounts, she had great enthusiasm for the fair, more properly known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. She bought a season ticket and traveled the short distance from her home to the fairgrounds nearly every day. The fair offered a spectacle of electric lights, fantastic inventions, and artificial waterways. Bands played ragtime , a new music that challenged traditional rhythms and echoed the rapid cadence of city life. On August 20, 1904, a particularly hot day, Chopin returned from the fair and later suffered a hemorrhage of the brain. Two days later, with her children at her bedside, she died.

In the year of her death, St. Louisan Alexander De Menil praised Bayou Folk , slighted her novels, and defined Chopin as a Creole writer. For several decades this assessment of her work prevailed. In 1923 Fred Lewis Pattee identified her as a master of the American short story. Daniel Rankin, who published a full-length biography of Chopin in 1932, unearthed important information about her early life. Scholarly interest remained limited until the 1960s, when Larzer Ziff defined Chopin as an American realist with the stature of Theodore Dreiser. The Norwegian scholar Per Seyersted collected and published The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969. His important biography of the author appeared in the same year. By the 1970s students of women’s history, as well as American literary history, flocked to libraries to study Chopin’s fiction. Dissertations and articles proliferated as the focus of critical attention shifted from her short stories to her 1899 novel. In the 1980s and 1990s, The Awakening became a popular text in college literature, women’s studies, and American studies classes.

Chopin ultimately gained fame as a realist rather than a local-color writer, a novelist rather than a short-story writer, a modernist rather than a teller of sentimental tales. She often chose rural settings for her fiction, but she lived in the city most of her life. The troubles of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening were the troubles of an affluent urban woman who spent her vacations on Grand Isle but lived in New Orleans. Her empty life resulted partially from traditional definitions of women’s roles, but mostly from the fact that those definitions no longer had meaning in urban America at the end of the nineteenth century. Chopin observed this emerging society in St. Louis in the 1880s and 1890s, the most creative years of her life. St. Louis influenced her thinking and nurtured her talent, while local editors, publishers, mentors, and friends encouraged her efforts.

Bonnie Stepenoff

Bonnie Stepenoff is professor emerita of history at Southeast Missouri State University.

Dictionary of Missouri Biography

• Further Reading

Chopin, Kate. The Complete Works of Kate Chopin . 2 vols. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

Koloski, Bernard, ed. Awakenings: The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.

Rankin, Daniel. Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1932.

Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

Skaggs, Peggy. Kate Chopin . Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985.

Toth, Emily. Kate Chopin . New York: William Morrow, 1990.

Walker, Nancy H. Kate Chopin: A Literary Life . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.

Ziff, Larzer. The American 1890s: Life and Times of a Lost Generation . New York: Viking, 1966.

Published September 6, 2018; Last updated December 22, 2023

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Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was an American fiction writer who is famous for her short stories. She wrote more than a hundred short stories and two novels. Her short stories were received with great enthusiasm by the readers. They were published in famous magazines like Harper’s Young People, Vogue, Youth’s Companion, the Atlantic Monthly, etc. 

Chopin was a much-read writer, but some of her works faced censorship. Though her short stories were famous, her first novel was not received well by the readers. Her second novel even faced the worst; it was condemned by critics and readers. It was labeled vulgar, sordid, and disagreeable.

Her short stories remained in print and circulation after her death, but her novels were completely forgotten. The critical value of The Awakening was recognized in the 1950s, and since then her works are highly esteemed. This novel has been translated into more than ten languages, and her works have become international classics. 

Her works are considered graceful, sensitive, poetic depictions of women’s lives. She has portrayed strong, unconventional women who have adulterous affairs and this became the reason for scandal. In contrast to her heroines, she never flouted conventions in her life.

She had worked as a suffragist in her youth years, and this influence is seen in her works. Though her fiction writing is regional in character, it is universal in nature. Her novels carry Whitmanian influences. There are narcissistic, autoerotic echoes in her novels which are the impacts of Whitmanian readings. 

Her heroine isn’t aware of this narcissism, and this later becomes the reason for her destruction. This over-investment in oneself is not clearly seen by most of her heroines. There is an ecstatic celebration of rebirth in her works which locates her main concern.

Her works can’t be called American epic or American elegy; rather, these can be classed as an everyday domestic diary. There are fissures in her works, and these are characteristic of everyday life. Her work is more naturalistic than romantic. She can be classed with American transcendentalists because of her form and content. 

Not all Whitmanian influences are overt in the case of her novels, and these are frequently repressed. Chopin mixes Whitmanian aura with the ambivalence of motherhood. Like Whitman, her complaint against nature is represented by numbness and hardly equivocal.

Marriage is a recurrent theme in her stories, and she has represented it from an unconventional perspective. She also portrays the dilemma faced by most human beings. It is the misery of making choices between what a person likes and what others want them to choose. Her characters always choose what they like. These characters choose their own path instead of the following society. 

She explores the special problems faced by women; she subtly suggests that women want sex and independence. This expression of desire for sex is often labeled as immorality by her critics. Her work is celebrated for strong perspectives on sexuality and female independence.3

A Short Biography of Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty on February 8 th , 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents were Thomas O’Flaherty and Eliza Faris. Her father was an Irish immigrant and successful businessman. Her mother belonged to the local French community and was Thomas’ second wife. Eliza was a well-connected member of the local French community. Kate’s parents had five children of whom she was third. 

The rest of her siblings didn’t survive and died before they had crossed the early twenties. She was sent to Sacred Heart Convent, St. Louis in 1855, from where she graduated in 1868. She was an avid reader, and this became the impetus for her writing.

Her father died when she was five years old. Her grandmother took the responsibility of educating her; she died in 1863. She faced other traumas as well. Her half-brother died in the captivity of Union forces during the Civil War. She developed an aversion for religion because the majority of her family members died on religious occasions. 

She had an interest in music and playing the piano. She met Oscar Chopin when she was about nineteen. He was a wealthy estate holder. He belonged to the local French creole; they got married in 1870. They visited Europe in 1870 and stayed in different places.

When they came back to the US, Oscar set his business of cotton and other commodities. She gave birth to six children from 1871 to 1879, of these five were boys while one girl. Oscar and Kate had a happy life together, but it didn’t last long. Due to hard financial time, Oscar closed his business, and they shifted to a small country house in Louisiana. 

There he bought a general store, and this continued for three years when it was closed due to his death from malaria in 1882. Kate widowed at the age of thirty-two and never remarried. She took the responsibility to raise her children.

Her biographer, Emily Toth, has suggested that she had an affair with a local planter. But this affair proved short-lived because she shifted from this county to her family residence. She was encouraged by her obstetrician and family friend, Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer, to write. 

As a result of this motivation, her first short stories appeared in the St . Louis Post Dispatch , in 1889. Her novel, At Fault , was published privately in 1890. She had an active social life and had to take care of her children. Despite this, she produced incredible works.

She kept an accurate record of her works. She kept a list of the works she produced, those which were published, and those which were rejected. She was an activist and a suffragist. She wrote nonfiction works as well, which were mainly intended to shed light on the conditions of women. She didn’t make much money from her writing, and for her expenses, she had to depend upon her investments and inheritance from her mother. 

She suffered a brain hemorrhage when she was visiting St. Louis World’s Fair on August 20 th , 1904. She died two days later due to it at the age of fifty-four. She was buried in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis.

Kate Chopin’s Writing Style

She belonged to the creole French culture in America, and its impacts are clear in her works. The greatest literary influence on her style was Guy de Maupassant, who was her contemporary French short story writer. She was a revisionist mythmaker who transformed the myths to represent the people of her society. She is more clear in her style and technique than Maupassant. 

She has employed irony in her works which is too subtle to be observed by a non-observant reader. Her women characters seem unloving, cold, and unfeeling. She was a vocal feminist, and this is evident in her works where clear disapproval of men is expressed.

Feminism is one of the major themes of her works. In contrast to typical feminism, she is of the view that both male and female face problems to fit with their mate and this creates problems in individual life. The influence of Maupassant is clearly visible in the conclusion of her short stories which are sharp and ironic. 

She made stylistic and thematic experiments in her works. Her difference from Maupassant lies in her objective psychological realism. Her focus is more on the character instead of the plot.

Tradition and Female Talent: Solitary Thoughts

Chopin’s influences of personal life in the past are seen in her works. She has survived illusions of romance, friendship, marriage, motherhood, etc. She had the belief that these would provide her identity and companionship. But her disappointment is evident in Maupassant’s work which she translated. 

A sentence ‘I speak and you answer me, and still, each of us is alone, side by side but alone…’,  became the credo of her life and works. This is clearly seen in her novel, The Awakening, which is alternatively named A Solitary Soul. In her works, we see the evolution from the fantasies that a person can fuse with another becoming one.

In this novel, the protagonist is shown breaking from conventional beliefs and making her own destiny. She breaks from the conventional roles of a mother and wife. This can also be seen as a parable which represents the literary awakening of the author. There is an evident struggle seen in the lives of the protagonist and the author. They are caught between femininity and creativity. 

They have two choices before them, either to be part of tradition or to go against it, gaining emancipated womanhood and emancipated fiction. Both go for an autonomous life, going against female plots and feminine endings.

Chopin had come to believe in the writing of The Awakening that if a writer has to make her own place, they have to go against the tradition. She has expressed this in her protagonist’s life who frees herself from received opinions and social obligations. She has integrated the post-civil-war conflicts in the lives of women in this novel. 

The conflict between love and desire is the most significant of these. There is no grief for sanctuaries of past and female bonds which expresses women’s satisfaction with their current situation.  These women are the product of aesthetic sophistication and Darwinian skepticism.

Social Fiction

In her fictional work, Kate Chopin has encompassed nineteenth-century South and contemporary life there. She represents a period of transmogrification. There is a shift from slavery to industrialization and economic assimilation. This newly transformed society was based on a class system, and in every class, women had subordinate roles. Kate has addressed the myths of nostalgia and progress. 

Progress is an ironic term which only represents that of men, not women who are more suppressed in the class system. Through social stratification, she has depicted economic, social, and sexual segregation of Arcadians, Creole, frontiers people, poor whites, blacks, and new money southerners. This is treated as both the cause and effect of alienation, both collective and individual.  

Her treatment of the South is not romantic like her contemporary writers. She has used the metamorphosis taking place in her society as the touchstone. There are emergent women in her works who defy the social securities and strictures which were held in the old South. They reject being judged by the code of womanhood and the ideological parameters which were set in the past. 

She has used every Southern ‘type’ in her works, writing across color lines. Though her main focus is on her own class, the Creoles. Her works Emancipation: A Life Fable, and The Awakening can be directly linked. The former is an initial work that lays the foreground for defiance and the later marks the completion of the journey.

Semiotic Subversion

Chopin’s work Désirée’s Baby is one of the most anthologized works and the reason for it is not its twisty end; rather, its complexity is the reason behind it. To understand this short story, semiotic and political approaches need to be combined. This story and some others lie at the nexus of class, race, and sex concerns. From the semiotic analysis of this work, it is evident that despite its brevity the meaning there is a rich account of disruption of meaning. 

The main character who is responsible for this disruption is Désirée Aubigny. Though at the first reading, she seems unprepossessing, she is the major catalyst for subversion. From the political analysis, it is clear that she casts doubts on race, class, and gender and their meaning.

Her being the source of subversion is clarified when she gives birth to a partly black baby. Her husband rejects her, and she leaves home, but then it is clarified that her husband was black from his mother’s side. There is deciphering of the unruffled surface of the symbolic system. 

The characters are shown knowledgeable about what a signifier means and what signifies the membership of a specific community. Through the manipulation of a symbolic system, the hierarchical structures are subverted. An example is Armand, the protagonist’s husband. He believes that he is white, master, and a male. But the first two beliefs are subverted after the birth of a child.  

Desire and The Descent of Man

In her fiction, Chopin has extended her meditation of the meaning of human life and love. This is done in the light of Darwinian thought. From the study of the theory of sexual selection, she got the support of the life she had celebrated. It gave her a sense of liberation. She depicted the innocence of the woman during courtship in her upcoming works. 

In At Fault, the heroine is shown to recognize that she had wrongly sacrificed herself. She is committed to conventional morality, and for this reason, she doesn’t conform to the electric (in Whitmanian sense) attraction she felt towards a divorced man. This desire is fulfilled when the two get married.

In The Awakening references to sexual selection are more extensive and explicit where the complexity of this affair is explored. Though she agreed with the agencies of sexual selection in particular and natural selection in general, she shows her discontent with the analysis of the female role. This disappointing role has led to ultimate despair in her works. 

She has resisted the struggle between men for the possession of women and the passive, modest role of women. She has also challenged the superiority of men over women. She has depicted women in her works who are not submissive; they select according to their own choice. They select those whom they desire and on the basis of other reasons.

Ironist of Realism

Chopin had read the works of European realists, and this influence can be seen in her works. Realist impact led to her liberation of style and subject matter. It was an alternative for the writers who had idealized family, marriage, female dependence, and were disappointed. Though in Chopin’s works there is no bleakness and pessimism like the works of colorists like Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, etc. 

Chopin’s works are characterized by symbolism, sensuality, and eroticism. She has used metaphors of light and warmth, colorful surroundings, etc. which characterize ordinary life and poverty. In her last novel, we see the struggle for identity and realization, which is a revolt against male oppression.

She has used Sophoclean irony, which is used to undercut the realist authority. Her narrative stance is ironic, which is characteristic of a writer challenging tradition and authority. She has given exquisite, liberating touch to her novel in the end when she conveys the message to refuse any finality. This is done on both a literal and figurative level. 

There is an uncertainty in the meaning of the action of the protagonist, which reinforces the metaphorical and symbolic implications of the journey. This work can also be treated as a literary biography that portrays the awakening of the author from a submissive role.

It was European Realism which gave Chopin freedom from sentimentality to get rid of the idealization influence of nineteenth-century writing. She turned realism against itself and ironized its own limitations.

Works Of Kate Chopin

Short stories.

• Desiree’s Baby

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KateChopin.org

The kate chopin international society, kate chopin: “her letters”, “her letters” is kate chopin’s short story about the husband of a woman who dies before she can destroy letters written to her by her lover..

Photo of Eads Bridge, St. Louis, by Ido von Reden, 1905 (Library of Congress)

By the Editors of KateChopin.org

Read the story in a PDF Characters Time and place Themes When the story was written and published Questions and answers  A new film based on the story Accurate texts New All of Kate Chopin’s short stories in Spanish An article about the story Books that discuss Kate Chopin’s short stories

Kate Chopin’s “Her Letters” online and in print

You can read the story and download it in our accurate, printable, and searchable PDF file, which is based on The Complete Works of Kate Chopin , edited by Per Seyersted (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969, 2006). If you’re citing a passage from this or other Kate Chopin stories for research purposes, it’s a good idea to check your citation against one of these printed texts.

In print you can find “Her Letters” in The Complete Works of Kate Chopin , in the Penguin Classics edition of Chopin’s A Vocation and a Voice, and in the Library of America Kate Chopin volume, as well as in other paperback and hardcover books. For publication information about these books, see the section “For students and scholars” near the bottom of this page.

“Her Letters” characters

• Unnamed woman

“Her Letters” time and place

The story takes place in an unnamed city, apparently in the late nineteenth century. Because Chopin describes the man walking across “the bridge that spanned the river–the deep, broad, swift, black river dividing two States,” she was probably thinking of St. Louis, where she was living when she wrote the story, and she is probably referring to the famous Eads Bridge, completed in 1874, which spans the Mississippi River at St. Louis.

“Her Letters” themes

As we explain in the questions and answers below, readers often wonder about where Kate Chopin got the idea for this story and why she did not give names to the characters. Some people find resemblances between the woman in this story and Edna Pontellier in The Awakening .

You can read about finding themes in Kate Chopin’s stories and novels on the Themes page of this site.

When Kate Chopin’s “Her Letters” was written and published

The story was written on November 29, 1894, and published in Vogue on April 11, 18, 1895, one of nineteen Kate Chopin stories that Vogue published. Chopin apparently intended the story to be included in her third collection of stories, to have been called A Vocation and a Voice , but the volume was for unknown reasons cancelled by the publisher and did not appear as a separate volume until 1991.

Chopin also wrote “The Story of an Hour” in 1894 (on April 19) and “Lilacs” (May 14–16). The following year she wrote “Athénaïse” (April 10–28, 1895) and “Fedora” (November 19).

You can find out  when Kate Chopin wrote each of her short stories and when and where each was first published.

Questions and answers about “Her Letters”

Q: Do scholars know what inspired Chopin to write this story?

A: Emily Toth writes in her 1999 Chopin biography that Carrie Blackman, a woman whom Chopin considered “woefully unballanced” may have inspired it. Chopin dedicated a poem to Blackman, whose “loveliness,” Toth says, “her air of secrecy, and her paintings of women also seem to have inspired” the story.

Mary Papke in Awakenings: The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival notes that Chopin wrote the story in the same year as she translated Guy de Maupassant’s short story “A Divorce Case.” This story and other Maupassant stories that Chopin translated, Papke argues, describe “intensely disturbed states of mind, what the characters themselves refuse to admit may be sociopathological states of being but in some cases clearly are.”

And there may have been other inspirations. Émile Zola describes a woman with a secret lover in his novel Lourdes , published in 1894. Chopin reviewed the novel a few days before she wrote “Her Letters.”

Q: Why didn’t Kate Chopin give names to these characters?

A: “Why” questions are tough to answer. Scholars rarely understand exactly why artists do what they do. But Barbara Ewell writes that in “Her Letters” the characters’ anonymity deepens the “sense of mystery and distance, which intensifies in the ironic contrast between our intimate perspective on the woman and the misperceptions of her character by her husband and closest friends.”

Q: Chopin’s  Awakening  describes Edna Pontellier living a “dual life.” Isn’t the woman in this story also doing that?

A: Yes, although Chopin says that Edna “apprehended instinctively the dual life–that outward existence which conforms, the inner life which questions.” But for the woman in “Her Letters,” as for Adrienne Farival in “Lilacs,” Bernard Koloski writes, “two separate existences are ‘outward.’ They are hidden from each other and incompatible–but they are lived, not only imagined, as are Mrs. Mallard’s reveries [in “The Story of an Hour” ] or Edna Pontellier’s adolescent fantasies about romantic men.”

You can read more questions and answers about Kate Chopin and her work, and you can contact us with your questions.

A New Film Based on “Her Letters”

New York filmmaker Amanda Lin Costa has written, directed, and produced a contemporary film adaptation of Kate Chopin’s short story “Her Letters.”

The executive producer of the film, Karla S. Bryant, tells us:

“ I leave this package to the care of my husband. With perfect faith in his loyalty and his love, I ask him to destroy it unopened.

“These two lines, written over a century ago by Kate Chopin, were the catalyst for Amanda Lin Costa’s vision for a short film. Remaining faithful to the story, the contemporary setting emphasizes the timeless qualities of the themes of love, doubt, suspicion, and despair. In keeping with Kate Chopin’s astute eye for subtle detail, the film is rich in visuals and moments which capture a multitude of emotions.”

“Once the post-production work is finished on the film,” Ms. Bryant adds, “our plan is to enter it in several quality film festivals and explore future distribution venues. A percentage of funds raised will support New York Women in Film and Television. We believe this is a strong project which highlights the uncompromising creativity of Kate Chopin, presented as a film to a wider audience.”

Amanda Lin Costa has done an interview about the film . And the interview now has a second part . Our thanks to Karla Bryant for the film stills.

For students and scholars

Accurate texts of “her letters”.

The Complete Works of Kate Chopin . Edited by Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969, 2006.

A Vocation and a Voice . Edited by Emily Toth. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories . Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Library of America , 2002.

An article about “Her Letters”

The article is available online through many university or public libraries.

Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. “In Possession of the Letter: Kate Chopin’s ‘Her Letters’.” Studies in American Fiction 30.1 (2002): 45-62.

Books that discuss Chopin’s short stories

Fox, Heather A.  Arranging Stories: Framing Social Commentary in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers . University Press of Mississippi, 2022.

Ostman, Heather.  Kate Chopin and Catholicism . Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Ostman, Heather, and Kate O’Donoghue, eds.  Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. The book contains these essays:

Koloski, Bernard. “Chopin’s Enlightened Men”: 15–27.

Walker, Rafael. “Kate Chopin and the Dilemma of Individualism”: 29–46.

Armiento, Amy Branam. “‘A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her’: The Legal Climate at the Time of ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 47–64.

Rossi, Aparecido Donizete. “The Gothic in Kate Chopin”: 65–82.

Gil, Eulalia Piñero. “The Pleasures of Music: Kate Chopin’s Artistic and Sensorial Synesthesia”: 83–100.

Ostman, Heather. “Maternity vs. Autonomy in Chopin’s ‘Regret’”: 101–15.

Merricks, Correna Catlett. “‘I’m So Happy; It Frightens Me’: Female Genealogy in the Fiction of Kate Chopin and Pauline Hopkins”: 145–58.

Sehulster, Patricia J. “American Refusals: A Continuum of ‘I Prefer Not Tos’ as Articulated in the Work of Chopin, Hawthorne, Harper, Atherton, and Dreiser”: 159–72.

Rajakumar, Mohanalakshmi and Geetha Rajeswar. “What Did She Die of? ‘The Story of an Hour’ in the Middle East Classroom”: 173–85.

O’Donoghue, Kate. “Teaching Kate Chopin Using Multimedia”: 187–202.

James Nagel.  Race and Culture in New Orleans Stories: Kate Chopin, Grace King, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and George Washington Cable.   Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2014.

Brosman, Catharine Savage.  Louisiana Creole Literature: A Historical Study . UP of Mississippi, 2013.

Wan, Xuemei.   Beauty in Love and Death—An Aesthetic Reading of Kate Chopin’s Works  [in Chinese]. China Social Sciences P, 2012.

Hebert-Leiter, Maria.  Becoming Cajun, Becoming American: The Acadian in American Literature from Longfellow to James Lee Burke . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2009.

Gale, Robert L.  Characters and Plots in the Fiction of Kate Chopin . Jefferson, N C: McFarland, 2009.

Beer, Janet, ed.  The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin . Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2008. The book contains these essays:

Knights, Pamela. “Kate Chopin and the Subject of Childhood”: 44–58.

Castillo, Susan. “’Race’ and Ethnicity in Kate Chopin’s Fiction”: 59–72.

Joslin, Katherine. “Kate Chopin on Fashion in a Darwinian World”: 73–86.

Worton, Michael. “Reading Kate Chopin through Contemporary French Feminist Theory”: 105–17.

Horner, Avril. “Kate Chopin, Choice and Modernism”: 132–46.

Taylor, Helen. “Kate Chopin and Post-Colonial New Orleans”: 147–60.

Ostman, Heather, ed.  Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First  Century:   New Critical Essays . Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008. The book contains these essays:

Kornhaber, Donna, and David Kornhaber. “Stage and Status: Theatre in the Short Fiction of Kate Chopin”: 15–32.

Thrailkill, Jane F. “Chopin’s Lyrical Anodyne for the Modern Soul”: 33–52.

Johnsen, Heidi. “Kate Chopin in  Vogue : Establishing a Textual Context for  A Vocation and a Voice ”: 53–69.

Batinovich, Garnet Ayers. “Storming the Cathedral: The Antireligious Subtext in Kate Chopin’s Works”: 73–90.

Kirby, Lisa A. “‘So the storm passed . . .’: Interrogating Race, Class, and Gender in Chopin’s ‘At the ’Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm’”: 91–104.

Frederich, Meredith. “Extinguished Humanity: Fire in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Godmother’”: 105–18.

Beer, Janet.   Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Stein, Allen F.  Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction . New York: Peter Lang, 2005.

Lohafer, Susan.  Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics and Culture in the Short Story.  Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2003.

Shaker, Bonnie James.  Coloring Locals: Racial Formation in Kate Chopin’s Youth’s Companion Stories . Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2003.

Perrin-Chenour, Marie-Claude.  Kate Chopin: Ruptures  [in French]. Paris, France: Belin, 2002.

Evans, Robert C.  Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction: A Critical Companion . West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill, 2001.

Koloski, Bernard, ed.  Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie by Kate Chopin . New York: Penguin, 1999.

Beer, Janet.   Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction.  New York: Macmillan–St. Martin’s, 1997.

Koloski, Bernard.  Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction . New York: Twayne, 1996.

Petry, Alice Hall, ed.  Critical Essays on Kate Chopin . New York: G. K. Hall, 1996. The book contains these essays:

Pollard, Percival. “From  Their Day in Court “: 67–70.

Reilly, Joseph J. “Stories by Kate Chopin”: 71–74.

Skaggs, Peggy. “The Boy’s Quest in Kate Chopin’s ‘A Vocation and a Voice’”: 129–33.

Dyer, Joyce [Coyne]. “The Restive Brute: The Symbolic Presentation of Repression and Sublimation in Kate Chopin’s ‘Fedora’”: 134–38.

Arner, Robert D. “Pride and Prejudice: Kate Chopin’s ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 139–46.

Bauer, Margaret D. “Armand Aubigny, Still Passing After All These Years: The Narrative Voice and Historical Context of ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 161–83.

Berkove, Lawrence I. “‘Acting Like Fools’: The Ill-Fated Romances of ‘At the ’Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm’”: 184–96.

Wagner-Martin, Linda. “Kate Chopin’s Fascination with Young Men”: 197–206.

Walker, Nancy A. “Her Own Story: The Woman of Letters in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction”: 218–26.

Elfenbein, Anna Shannon.  Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin . Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1994.

Fick, Thomas H., and Eva Gold, guest eds. “Special Section: Kate Chopin.”  Louisiana   Literature :   A Review of Literature and Humanities . Spring, 1994. 8–171. The special section of the journal contains these essays:

Toth, Emily. “Introduction: A New Generation Reads Kate Chopin”: 8–17.

Koloski, Bernard. “The Anthologized Chopin: Kate Chopin’s Short Stories in Yesterday’s and Today’s Anthologies”: 18–30.

Saar, Doreen Alvarez. “The Failure and Triumph of ‘The Maid of Saint Phillippe’: Chopin Rewrites American Literature for American Women”: 59–73.

Dyer, Joyce. “‘Vagabonds’: A Story without a Home”: 74–82.

Padgett, Jacqueline Olson. “Kate Chopin and the Literature of the Annunciation, with a Reading of ‘Lilacs’”: 97–107.

Day, Karen. “The ‘Elsewhere’ of Female Sexuality and Desire in Kate Chopin’s ‘A Vocation and a Voice’”: 108–17.

Cothern, Lynn. “Speech and Authorship in Kate Chopin’s ‘La Belle Zoraïde’”: 118–25.

Lundie, Catherine. “Doubly Dispossessed: Kate Chopin’s Women of Color”: 126–44.

Ellis, Nancy S. “Sonata No. 1 in Prose, the ‘Von Stoltz’: Musical Structure in an Early Work by Kate Chopin”: 145–56.

Ewell, Barbara C. “Making Places: Kate Chopin and the Art of Fiction”: 157–71.

Boren, Lynda S., and Sara deSaussure Davis (eds.),  Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1992. The book contains these essays:

Toth, Emily. “Kate Chopin Thinks Back Through Her Mothers: Three Stories by Kate Chopin”: 15–25.

Bardot, Jean. “French Creole Portraits: The Chopin Family from Natchitoches Parish”: 26–35.

Thomas, Heather Kirk. “‘What Are the Prospects for the Book?’: Rewriting a Woman’s Life”: 36–57.

Black, Martha Fodaski. “The Quintessence of Chopinism”: 95–113.

Ewell, Barbara C. “Kate Chopin and the Dream of Female Selfhood”: 157–65.

Davis, Sara deSaussure. “Chopin’s Movement Toward Universal Myth”: 199–206.

Blythe, Anne M. “Kate Chopin’s ‘Charlie’”: 207–15.

Ellis, Nancy S. “Insistent Refrains and Self-Discovery: Accompanied Awakenings in Three Stories by Kate Chopin”: 216–29.

Toth, Emily, ed.  A Vocation and a Voice by Kate Chopin.  New York: Penguin, 1991.

Showalter, Elaine.  Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing . Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 1991.

Papke, Mary E.  Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton . New York: Greenwood, 1990.

Elfenbein, Anna Shannon.  Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin . Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1989.

Taylor, Helen.  Gender, Race, and Region in the Writings of Grace King, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and Kate Chopin . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1989.

Bonner, Thomas Jr.,  The Kate Chopin Companion . New York: Greenwood, 1988.

Bloom, Harold, ed.  Kate Chopin . New York: Chelsea, 1987. The book contains these essays:

Ziff, Larzer. “An Abyss of Inequality”: 17–24.

Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. “The Fiction of Limits: ‘Désirée’s Baby’”: 35–42.

Dyer, Joyce C. “Gouvernail, Kate Chopin’s Sensitive Bachelor”: 61–69.

Dyer, Joyce C. “Kate Chopin’s Sleeping Bruties”: 71–81.

Gardiner, Elaine. “‘Ripe Figs’: Kate Chopin in Miniature”: 83–87.

Ewell, Barbara C.  Kate Chopin . New York: Ungar, 1986.

Skaggs, Peggy.  Kate Chopin . Boston: Twayne, 1985.

Toth, Emily, ed.   Regionalism and the Female Imagination . New York: Human Sciences Press, 1984.

Stein, Allen F.  After the Vows Were Spoken: Marriage in American Literary Realism . Columbus: Ohio UP, 1984.

Huf, Linda.  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: The Writer as Heroine in American Literature . New York: Ungar, 1983.

Christ, Carol P.  Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest . Boston: Beacon, 1980.

Springer, Marlene.  Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin: A Reference Guide.  Boston: Hall, 1976.

Cahill, Susan.  Women and Fiction: Short Stories by and about Women . New York: New American Library, 1975.

Seyersted, Per, ed.   “The Storm” and Other Stories by Kate Chopin: With   The Awakening . Old Westbury: Feminist P, 1974.

Freedman, Florence B., et al.  Special Issue: Whitman, Chopin, and O’Faolain . WWR, 1970.

Leary, Lewis, ed.  The Awakening   and Other Stories by Kate Chopin . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

Seyersted, Per.  Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969.

Rankin, Daniel,  Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories . Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1932.

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Kate Chopin : a critical biography

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Reprint of the ed. published (1969) by Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, and Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, in the series: Publications of the American Institute, University of Oslo. "...no changes have been made in this reprint of my 1969 book."--P. [7] Includes bibliography (p. [230]-237) and index.

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The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

An original and unabridged edition, publisher description.

Edna Pontellier, living in New Orleans, is torn between motherhood and being a Feminist. This title, a first for American modernist literature, is a Southern American work like no other. A wonderful read from the master herself, Kate Chopin. The Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin is a set of Feminist Literature short stories first published in 1899 the United States. A Look Inside “The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies” “She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.” ― Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Selected Stories About the Book In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier's journey of self-discovery is recorded. After spending the summer on Grand Isle, Louisiana, with a younger friend, she feels driven to open up. She starts to change from a thoughtless housewife and mother upon returning to her family's New Orleans home to a more independent and confident person, but one who is not fully accepted by the society she lives in. Despite being most known for her Louisiana-set short tales, novelist Kate Chopin also wrote novels. While using the same location, The Awakening explored new ground with its themes of marital infidelity and a mother's flawed loyalty to her children. The less than spectacular critical reception that followed led to the cancellation of her second piece, which is not surprising given the moral context of the time. The Awakening, which was rediscovered in the 1960s, is now regarded as a foundational piece of early American feminist literature. A Stunning Reproduction At Last Chance Publishing, we take every step possible to ensure the original integrity of this book has been upheld to its highest standard. This means that the texts in this story are unedited and unchanged from the original authors publication, preserving its earliest form for your indulgence. This title is one of the best Early American Feminist short stories, of all time, words strung together with such style and romantic precision, a modern Southern American book that you just do not see in the modern age. This title will make an excellent gift to the Kate Chopin buffs in your life or a fantastic addition to your current collection. We are ready to ship this book off to you today at lightning speed, so you will find yourself indulging in this title without delay. Books Specifics ● Original 1899 Text ● Classic Feminist Short Stories Annotated Content • Historical Context • Detailed 19th Century Historical bullet pointed context Author American writer Kate Chopin (1850–1904) is best known for her stories that explore the nuanced inner lives of strong, perceptive women. Her novel The Awakening and her collection of short stories are recognized as great works of American literature. Chopin is also known for her concerns over women's emancipation, which foreshadowed later feminist literary themes. She is recognized as one of the 20th century's pioneering American feminist writers.

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