The Rise and Fall of Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin once stated that the only true subject for great fiction is “human existence in the subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the veil with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it” (Foy 1991). Likewise, Chopin has written almost one hundred short stories, three novels, and one play: all about the people she knew and places she had experienced in her lifetime. Chopin’s work was categorized as local color, which is fiction focusing on the region and its characteristics. Because Chopin wrote openly about what she observed around her, her literary career was ruined by the critical response of her readers to her last novel, The Awakening.
Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty in St. Louis, MO in 1850 to a wealthy Irish-French family. When Chopin was five years old, she was sent to a catholic boarding school only to be sent home two months later when her father was killed in a tragic train accident. For......
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