The Life of Kate Chopin :: essays research papers

The Life of Kate ChopinBorn originally as Katherine OFlaherty, Kate Chopin came to life on February 8th, 1851 in St. Louis, Missouri to Thomas and Eliza OFlaherty. The family she was born into was known as one of St. Louis wealthiest familys because of her fathers well-known success as merchant involving the change of boats and wholesale grocery. In 1855 Thomas OFlaherty died suddenly from a work-related railroad accident. Kate lacked male role models in her life after her father died. She was raised by 3 generations of women, including her maternal great-grandmother, Madame Victoria Verdon Charleville, who instructed Kate in music lessons, French lessons, and gradetelling. Additionally, Kate attended the prestigious Sacred Heart Academy, which promoted intelligence and independent thinking this helped Kate begin her lifelong jockey of reading and writing. When Kate was eleven, Madame Charleville died, and Kates half-brother George was killed while fighting in the Civil War for the Confederate side.At the age of nineteen Kate OFlaherty married Oscar Chopin, the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. The union between these two individuals produced six children (five boys and two girls). Oscar was French Catholic, as was Kate. In 1882, Oscar Chopin died of malaria also known at the time as swamp fever. Kate managed her husbands business for approximately a year and then returned to live near her mother in St. Louis. A year after her return, her mother passed away.To plump for herself and her family, Kate began to write. She was immediately successful and wrote short stories about people she had known in Louisiana. Her first novel, At Fault, was published in 1890 when Kate was forty. When The Awakening was published in 1899, the story created a scandal because of its portrayal of a strong, unconventional woman involved in an adulterous affair. It was inspired by a true story of a New Orleans woman who was infamous in the French Quarter.