DÉSIRÉE’S BAby

- By Kate Chopin
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American author (1850–1904) Kate ChopinChopin in 1893BornKatherine O'Flaherty(1850-02-08)February 8, 1850St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.DiedAugust 22, 1904(1904-08-22) (aged 54)St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.OccupationNovelist, short story writerGenreRealistic fictionNotable worksThe AwakeningSpouse Oscar Chopin ​ ​(m. 1870; died 1882)​Children6, including Oscar ChopinSignature Kate Chopin (/ˈʃoʊpæn/,[1][2] also US: /ʃoʊˈpæn, ˈʃoʊpən/;[3] born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850[4] – August 22, 1904)[5] was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars[6] to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald, and she is one of the more frequently read and recognized writers of Louisiana Creole heritage. She is best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening. Of maternal French and paternal Irish descent, Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She married and moved with her husband to New Orleans. They later lived in the country in Cloutierville, Louisiana. From 1892 to 1895, Chopin wrote short stories for both children and adults that were published in national magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The Century Magazine, and The Youth's Companion. Her stories aroused controversy because of her subjects and her approach; they were condemned as immoral by some critics. Her major works were two short story collections and two novels. The collections are Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her important short stories included "Désirée's Baby" (1893), a tale of an interracial relationship in antebellum Louisiana,[7] "The Story of an Hour" (1894),[8] and "The Storm" (written 1898, first published 1969).[9][7] ("The Storm" is a sequel to "At the Cadian Ball (1892)," which appeared in Bayou Folk, her first collection of short stories.)[7] Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899), which are set in New Orleans and Grand Isle, respectively. The characters in her stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana, a region where she lived. Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time.[10] In 1915, Fred Lewis Pattee wrote "some of [Chopin's] work is equal to the best that has been produced in France or even in America. [She displayed] what may be described as a native aptitude for narration amounting almost to genius."[10] She was not related to famous Polish composer Frederic Chopin as some may believe but she did have a son named Frederick Chopin, who is probably named after the composer. Life[edit] Chopin and her children in New Orleans, 1877 Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Thomas O'Flaherty, was a successful businessman who had immigrated to the United States from Galway, Ireland. Her mother, Eliza Faris, was his second wife, and a well-connected member of the ethnic French community in St. Louis as the daughter of Athénaïse Charleville, a Louisiana creole of French Canadian descent. Some of Chopin's ancestors were among the early European (French) inhabitants of Dauphin Island, Alabama.[11] Kate was the third of five children, but her sisters died in infancy and her half-brothers (from her father's first marriage) died in their early 20s. They were raised Roman Catholic in the French and Irish traditions. She also became an avid reader of fairy tales, poetry, religious allegories, and classic and contemporary novels. She graduated from Sacred Heart Convent in St. Louis in 1868.[11] At the age of five, she was sent to Sacred Heart Academy, where she learned how to handle her own money and make her own decisions. Upon her father's death, she was brought home to live with her grandmother and great-grandmother, comprising three generations of women who were widowed young and never remarried. For two years, she was tutored at home by her great-grandmother, Victoria (or Victoire) Charleville, who taught French, music, history, gossip, and the need to look on life without fear.[12] After those two years, Kate went back to Sacred Heart Academy, which her best friend and neighbor, Kitty Garesche, also attended, and where her mentor, Mary O'Meara, taught. A gifted writer of both verse and prose, O'Meara guided her student to write regularly, to judge herself critically, and to conduct herself valiantly. Nine days after Kate and Kitty's first communions in May 1861, the American Civil War came to St. Louis. During the war, Kate's half-brother died of fever, and her great-grandmother died as well. After the war ended, Kitty and her family were banished from St. Louis for supporting the Confederacy.[13] Chopin house in Cloutierville In St. Louis, Missouri on June 8, 1870,[14] she married Oscar Chopin and settled with him in his home town of New Orleans. The Chopins had six children between 1871 and 1879: in order of birth, Jean Baptiste, Oscar Charles, George Francis, Frederick, Felix Andrew, and Lélia (baptized Marie Laïza).[15] In 1879, Oscar Chopin's cotton brokerage failed. The family left the city and moved to Cloutierville in south Natchitoches Parish to manage several small plantations and a general store. They became active in the community, where Chopin found, in the local creole culture, much material for her future writing. When Oscar Chopin died in 1882, he left Kate $42,000 in debt (approximately $1.33 million in 2024[16]). The scholar Emily Toth noted that "for a while the widow Kate ran his [Oscar's] business and flirted outrageously with local men; (she even engaged in a relationship with a married farmer)."[17] Although Chopin worked to make her late husband's plantation and general store succeed, she sold her Louisiana business two years later.[17][18] Chopin's mother had implored her to move back to St. Louis, which she did, with her mother's financial support. Her children gradually settled into life in the bustling city, but Chopin's mother died the following year.[18] Chopin struggled with depression after the successive loss of her husband, her business, and her mother. Chopin's obstetrician and family friend Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer suggested that she start writing, believing that it could be therapeutic for her. He believed that writing could be a focus for her energy as well as a source of income.[19] By the early 1890s, Chopin's short stories, articles, and translations appeared in periodicals, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and in various literary magazines. During a period of considerable publishing of folk tales, works in dialect, and other elements of Southern folk life, she was considered a regional writer who provided local color. Her literary qualities were largely overlooked.[20] In 1899, The Awakening, her second novel, was published. Some newspaper critics reviewed the novel favorably.[21] However, the critical reception was largely negative. The critics considered the behavior of the novel's characters, especially the women, as well as Chopin's general treatment of female sexuality, motherhood, and marital infidelity, to be in conflict with prevailing standards of moral conduct and therefore offensive.[22] This novel, her best-known work, is the story of a woman trapped within the confines of an oppressive society. Out of print for several decades, it was rediscovered in the 1970s, when there was a wave of new studies and appreciation of women's writings. The novel has been reprinted and now is widely available. It has been critically acclaimed for its writing quality and importance as an example of early feminist literature of the South.[20] Kate Chopin's grave in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, MissouriCritics suggest that such works as The Awakening were scandalous and therefore not socially embraced. Chopin was discouraged by the lack of acceptance, but she continued to write, primarily writing short stories.[20] In 1900, she wrote "The Gentleman from New Orleans." That same year she was listed in the first edition of Marquis Who's Who. However, she never earned a significant amount of money from her writing, instead living off of the investments she made locally in Louisiana and St. Louis of the inheritance from her mother's estate.[20] While visiting the St. Louis World's Fair on August 20, 1904, Chopin suffered a brain hemorrhage. She died two days later, at the age of 54. She was interred in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.[20] Literary themes[edit] Kate Chopin lived in a variety of locations, based on different economies and societies. These were sources of insights and observations from which she analyzed and expressed her ideas about late 19th-century society in the Southern United States. She was brought up by women who were primarily ethnic French. Living in areas influenced by the Louisiana Creole and Cajun cultures after she joined her husband in Louisiana, she based many of her stories and sketches on her life in Louisiana. They expressed her unusual portrayals of women as individuals with separate wants and needs.[18] Chopin's writing style was influenced by her admiration of the contemporary French writer Guy de Maupassant, known for his short stories: ...I read his stories and marveled at them. Here was life, not fiction; for where were the plots, the old fashioned mechanism and stage trapping that in a vague, unthinkable way I had fancied were essential to the art of story making. Here was a man who had escaped from tradition and authority, who had entered into himself and looked out upon life through his own being and with his own eyes; and who, in a direct and simple way, told us what he saw...[23] Kate Chopin in a riding habit, 1876 Kate Chopin is an example of a revisionist myth-maker because she revises myth more realistically about marriage and female sexuality of her time.[24] The biggest myth Chopin focused on was the "Victorian notion of women's somewhat anemic sexuality" and "The Storm" is the best example of Kate Chopin using that myth through a character set on fulfilling her complete sexual potential.[24] For instance, in "The Storm", portraits of women were revised by Kate Chopin to obtain consummation in roles other than marriage to evince a passionate nature considered inappropriate by conventional, patriarchal standards of Victorian America.[24] Chopin went beyond Maupassant's technique and style to give her writing its own flavor. She had an ability to perceive life and creatively express it. She concentrated on women's lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the Southern society of the late nineteenth century. For instance, in "The Story of an Hour", Mrs. Mallard allows herself time to reflect after learning of her husband's death. Instead of dreading the lonely years ahead, she stumbles upon another realization: She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.[8] Not many writers during the mid- to late 19th century were bold enough to address subjects that Chopin addressed. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese of Emory University wrote that "Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women's ability to be strong."[25] Kate Chopin's sympathies lay with the individual in the context of his and her personal life and society. Through her stories, Chopin wrote a kind of autobiography and described her societies; she had grown up in a time when her surroundings included the abolitionist movements before the American Civil War, and their influence on freedmen education and rights afterward, as well as the emergence of feminism. Her ideas and descriptions were not reporting, but her stories expressed the reality of her world.[18] Chopin took strong interest in her surroundings and wrote about many of her observations. Jane Le Marquand assesses Chopin's writings as a new feminist voice, while other intellectuals recognize it as the voice of an individual who happens to be a woman. Marquand writes, "Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing the Other, the woman, with an individual identity and a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind give voice. The 'official' version of her life, that constructed by the men around her, is challenged and overthrown by the woman of the story."[23] Chopin appeared to express her belief in the strength of women. Marquand draws from theories about creative nonfiction in terms of her work. In order for a story to be autobiographical, or even biographical, Marquand writes, there has to be a nonfictional element, but more often than not the author exaggerates the truth to spark and hold interest for the readers. Kate Chopin might have been surprised to know her work has been characterized as feminist in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, just as she had been in her own time to have it described as immoral. Critics tend to regard writers as individuals with larger points of view addressed to factions in society.[23] Early works[edit] Kate Chopin began her writing career with her first story published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.[26][27] By the early 1890s, Chopin forged a successful writing career, contributing short stories and articles to local publications and literary journals. She also initially wrote a number of short stories such as "A Point at Issue!", "A No-Account Creole", "Beyond the Bayou" which were published in various magazines.[26][27] In 1890, her first novel "At Fault" about a young widow and the sexual constraints of women was published privately.[26][27] The protagonist demonstrates the initial theme of Kate Chopin's works when she began writing. In 1892, Kate Chopin produced "Désirée's Baby", "Ripe Figs" and "At the 'Cadian Ball" which appeared in Two Tales that year, and eight of her other stories were published.[26][27] The short story "Désirée's Baby" focuses on Kate Chopin's experience with interracial relationships and communities of the Creoles of color in Louisiana. She came of age when slavery was institutionalized in St. Louis and the South. In Louisiana, there had been communities established of free people of color, especially in New Orleans, where formal arrangements were made between white men and free women of color or enslaved women for plaçage, a kind of common-law marriage. There and in the country, she lived with a society based on the history of slavery and the continuation of plantation life, to a great extent. Mixed-race people were numerous in New Orleans and the South. This story addresses the racism of 19th century America; persons who were visibly European-American could be threatened by the revelation of also having African ancestry. Chopin was not afraid to address such issues, which were often suppressed and intentionally ignored. Her character Armand tries to deny this reality, when he refuses to believe that he is of partial black descent, as it threatens his ideas about himself and his status in life. R. R. Foy believed that Chopin's story reached the level of great fiction, in which the only true subject is "human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the view with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it".[28] "Desiree's Baby" was first published in an 1893 issue of Vogue, alongside "A Visit to Avoyelles", another of Kate Chopin's short stories, under the heading "Character Studies: The Father of Desiree's Baby – The Lover of Mentine." "A Visit to Avoyelles" typifies the local color writing that Chopin was known, and it is one of her stories that shows a couple in a completely fulfilled marriage. While Doudouce is hoping otherwise, he sees ample evidence that Mentine and Jules' marriage is a happy and fulfilling one despite the poverty-stricken circumstances that they live. In contrast, in "Desiree's Baby", which is much more controversial, due to the topic of interracial relationships, portrays a marriage in trouble. The other contrasts to "A Visit to Avoyelles" are clear, but some are more subtle than others. Unlike Mentine and Jules, Armand and Desiree are rich and own slaves and a plantation. Mentine and Jules' marriage has weathered many hard times, while Armand and Desiree's falls apart at the first sign of trouble. Kate Chopin was talented at showing various sides of marriages and local people and their lives, making her writing very broad and sweeping in topic, even as she had many common themes in her work.[29][30] Martha Cutter argues that Kate Chopin demonstrates feminine resistance to patriarchal society through her short stories.[31] Cutter claims that Chopin's resistance can be traced through the timeline of her work, with Chopin becoming more and more understanding of how women can fight back suppression as time progresses.[31] To demonstrate this, Cutter claims that Chopin's earlier stories, such as "At the 'Cadian Ball," "Wiser than a God," and "Mrs. Mobry's Reason" present women who are outright resisting, and are therefore not taken seriously, erased, or called insane. However, in Chopin's later stories, the female characters take on a different voice of resistance, one that is more "covert" and works to undermine patriarchal discourse from within. Cutter exemplifies this idea through the presentation of Chopin's works written after 1894.[31] Cutter claims that Chopin wanted to "disrupt patriarchal discourse, without being censored by it." And to do this, Chopin tried different strategies in her writings: silent women, overly resistant women, women with a "voice covert," and women who mimic patriarchal discourse.[31] In 1893, she wrote "Madame Célestin's Divorce," and 13 of her stories were published. In 1894, "The Story of an Hour" and "A Respectable woman" were published by Vogue. Bayou Folk, a collection of 23 of Chopin's stories, was a success to Kate Chopin in 1894, published by Houghton Mifflin. It was the first of her works to gain national attention, and it was followed by A Night in Acadie (1897), another collection of short stories. The Awakening[edit] Main article: The Awakening (Chopin novel) First edition title page of The Awakening (1899) Published in 1899, her novel The Awakening is considered ahead of its time, garnering more negative reviews than positive from contemporary sources. Chopin was discouraged by this criticism, and she turned to writing short stories almost exclusively.[32] The female characters in The Awakening went beyond the standards of social norms of the time.[32][33][34] The protagonist has sexual desires and questions the sanctity of motherhood.[32][33][34] The novel explores the theme of marital infidelity from the perspective of a married woman. The book was widely banned, and it fell out of print for several decades, then was republished in the 1970s.[32] It now is considered a classic of feminist fiction.[32] Chopin reacted to the negative events happening to her by commenting ironically:I never dreamt of Mrs. Pontellier making such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late. According to Bender, Chopin was intrigued by Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.[33] Although she agreed with the processes of evolution, Chopin however disagreed with Darwin's theory of sexual selection and the female's role, which can be exemplified in The Awakening, in which Bender argues that Chopin references The Descent of Man.[33] In his essay, Darwin suggests female inferiority and says that males had "gained the power of selection." Bender argues that in her writing, Chopin presented women characters that had selective power based on their own sexual desires, not the want of reproduction or love.[33] Bender argues this idea through the examples of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening, Mrs. Baroda in "A Respectable Woman," and Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour."[33] Martha Cutter's article "The Search for a Feminine Voice in the Works of Kate Chopin" analyzes the female characters in many of Chopin's stories. Cutter argues that Chopin's opinion of women as being "the invisible and unheard sex" is exemplified through the characterization of Edna in The Awakening. Cutter argues that Chopin's writing was shocking due to its sexual identity and articulation of feminine desire. According to Cutter, Chopin's stories disrupt patriarchal norms.[35] Today, The Awakening is said to be one of the five top favorite novels in literature courses all over America.[36] Reception and legacy[edit] Legacy[edit] Kate Chopin has been credited by some as a pioneer of the early feminist movement despite not achieving any literary rewards for her works.[35][31] Critical reception[edit] Kate ChopinKate Chopin wrote the majority of her short stories and novels from 1889 to 1904. Altogether, Chopin wrote about 100 short stories or novels during her time as a fiction writer; her short stories were published in a number of local newspapers including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.[37] A large number of her short stories were published in national magazines,such as Youth's Companion and Harper's Young People. Bayou Folk was well-reviewed, with Chopin's writing about how she had seen 100 press notices about it. Those stories were published in The New York Times and The Atlantic. Readers particularly liked how she used local dialects to give her characters a more authentic and relatable feel.[37] She also published two novels: At Fault and The Awakening. Her novels were not well-received initially, compared to her short stories. Her 1899 novel The Awakening was considered to be immoral due to the overt themes of female sexuality, as well as the female protagonist's constantly rebuking gender roles and norms. There have been rumors that the novel originally was banned, which have been disproved.[38] Local and national newspapers published mixed reviews of Chopin's novel with one calling it "poison" and "unpleasant", going on to say it was "too strong a drink for moral babes",[39] while another newspaper published a review calling the novel, "A St. Louis Woman Who Has Turned Fame Into Literature."[40] The majority of the early reviews for The Awakening were largely negative. Emily Toth, one of Chopin's most well known biographers, thought she had gone too far with this novel. She argued that the protagonist Edna's blatant sensuality was too much for the male gatekeepers. So much so that publication of her next novel was cancelled. The poet Orrick Johns was at least one strong advocate of Chopin and The Awakening. "An influential modernist poet and progressive journalist originally from St. Louis who was popular in Greenwich Village literary circles,"[41] in 1911 he wrote in Reedy's Mirror: "To one who has read her as a boy and come back to her again with powers of appreciation more subtly developed, she breathes the magic of a whole chapter in his life."[41] "...[C]redible evidence exists that Johns shared his positive views of Chopin with his literary peers, a tight-knit group that included feminist writers Susan Glaspell and Edith Summers Kelley..."[42] Through Johns's personal friendship with Kelley and his fierce advocacy for The Awakening, it has been argued[42] that Kelley read and was influenced by The Awakening, a book once thought of as a literary dead end in terms of influence on the next generation of feminist writers. Textual comparisons between specific texts in Kelly's Weeds and The Awakening point toward an argument for its wider influence. By the 1950s, Kate Chopin was all but forgotten. Her books were all out of print, only her story "Désirée's Baby" was in print in numerous American short story anthologies. That started to change in 1962, when noted literary critic Edmund Wilson included her as one of 30 authors discussed in Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War. Unhappy that he had to read some of her works on microfilm at the Library of Congress, Wilson urged Per Seyersted, a Norwegian who had written an article on her and who was studying in America, to focus his studies on her. Seven years later, in 1969, Seyersted published The Complete Works of Kate Chopin and a full-length biography.[43] These two books formed the scholarly support for a rediscovery of Chopin. It took a brief commentary by novelist Linda Wolfe in the September 22, 1972 issue of "The New York Times" to kickstart the rediscovery of Chopin by the general public. In "There’s Someone You Should Know- Kate Chopin," she described how she encouraged friends disappointed with contemporary fiction to discover Chopin and how The Awakening spoke to her today.[44] The last step required to bring the novel to general awareness happened almost immediately. Before the year was out a major mass-market paperback publisher, Avon Books, had the first mass-market paperback publication of the book heading to drug stores, supermarkets, and bookstores. A blurb from Wolfe's comments was featured prominently below the title and author's name at the top of the cover: "'Speaks to me as pertinently as any fiction published this year or last. It is uncanny, nothing else . . . A masterpiece.' Linda Wolfe, The New York Times".[45] Within a few years all of the major mass-market paperback publishers had editions of The Awakening in print, making it widely available for anyone to buy. Per Seyersted's rediscovery of Chopin caused her work to be seen as essential feminist and Southern literature from the 19th century. Seyersted wrote that she "broke new ground in American Literature." According to Emily Toth, author of a recent Chopin biography, Kate Chopin's work rose in popularity and recognition during the 1970s due to themes of women venturing outside of the constraints set upon them by society, which appealed to people participating in feminist activism and the sexual revolution. She also argues that the works appealed to women in the 1960s, "a time when American women yearned to know about our feisty foremothers"."[40] Academics and scholars began to put Chopin in the same feminist categories as Louisa May Alcott, Susan Warner, and Emily Dickinson. Parallels between Alcott and Chopin have been drawn to point out how both authors wrote about women who departed from their traditional roles by dreaming of or striving for independence and individual freedoms, also described as a dramatization of a woman's struggle for selfhood.[46] A reviewer for Choice Reviews stated that it was ultimately a struggle doomed to failure because the patriarchal conventions of her society restricted her freedom.[47] Karen Simons felt that this failed struggle was perfectly captured by the ending of the novel, where Edna Pontellier ends her life due to her realization that she cannot truly be both the traditional mother and have a sense of herself as an individual at the same time.[48] Representation in other media[edit] Louisiana Public Broadcasting, under president Beth Courtney, produced Kate Chopin: A Reawakening, a documentary on Chopin's life.[49] In the penultimate episode of the first season of HBO's Treme, set in New Orleans, the teacher Creighton (played by John Goodman) assigns Kate Chopin's The Awakening to his freshmen and warns them: "I want you to take your time with it," he cautions. "Pay attention to the language itself. The ideas. Don't think in terms of a beginning and an end. Because unlike some plot-driven entertainments, there is no closure in real life. Not really."[50] Works[edit] "Bayou Folk" Read "Bayou Folk" "A Night in Acadie" Read "A Night in Acadie" "At the Cadian Ball" (1892) Read "At the Cadian Ball" Archived October 23, 2005, at the Wayback Machine "The Story of an Hour" (1894) Read "The Story of an Hour" "Désirée's Baby" (1895) Read "Désirée's Baby" "Emancipation: A Life Fable" Read "Emancipation: A Life Fable" "The Storm" (1898) Read "The Storm" "A Pair of Silk Stockings" Read "A Pair of Silk Stockings" "The Locket" "Athenaise" Read "Athenaise" "Lilacs" Read "Lilacs" "A Respectable Woman" Read "A Respectable Woman" "The Unexpected" Read "The Unexpected" "The Kiss" Read "The Kiss" "Beyond the Bayou" Read "Beyond the Bayou" "An No-Account Creole" Read "An No-Account Creole" The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories "Fedora" "Regret" Read "Regret "Madame Célestin's Divorce" Read "Madame Célestin's Divorce" At Fault (1890), Nixon Jones Printing Co, St. Louis Read "At Fault" The Awakening (1899), H.S. Stone, Chicago Read "The Awakening" "An Egyptian Cigarette" (1900) Honors and awards[edit] Her home with Oscar Chopin in Cloutierville was built by Alexis Cloutier in the early part of the 19th century. In the late 20th century, the house was designated as the Kate Chopin House, a National Historic Landmark (NHL), because of her literary significance. The house was adapted for use as the Bayou Folk Museum. On October 1, 2008, the house was destroyed by a fire, with little left but the chimney.[51] In 1990, Chopin was honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[52] In 2012, she was commemorated with an iron bust of her head at the Writer's Corner in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, across the street from Left Bank Books.[53] See also[edit] Literature of Louisiana Notes[edit] ^ "Chopin, Kate". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on May 16, 2021. ^ "Chopin". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved July 23, 2019. ^ "Chopin". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved July 23, 2019. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions about Kate Chopin". KateChopin.org. ^ Barton, Gay (1999). "Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty". American National Biography (online ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1600295. (subscription required) ^ Nilsen, Helge Normann. "American Women's Literature in the Twentieth Century: A Survey of Some Feminist Trends," American Studies in Scandinavia, Vol. 22, 1990, pp. 27–29; University of Trondheim ^ a b c William L. (Ed.) Andrews, Hobson, Trudier Harris, Minrose C. Gwwin (1997). The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. Norton, W. W. & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31671-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ a b Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. ^ "The Storm, Kate Chopin, characters, setting, questions". KateChopin.org. The Kate Chopin International Society. Retrieved January 28, 2023. ^ a b Fred Lewis Pattee. A History of American Literature Since 1870. Harvard University Press. p. 364. ^ a b Literary St. Louis: Noted Authors and St. Louis Landmarks Associated With Them. Associates of St. Louis University Libraries, Inc. and Landmarks Associate of St. Louis, Inc. 1969. ^ Beer, Janet (2008). The Cambridge Companion To Kate Chopin. Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–26. ISBN 9781139001984. ^ Toth and Seyersted, Emily and Per (1998). Kate Chopin's Private Papers. Indiana University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0253331120. ^ Marriage certificate between Oscar Chopin and Katie O'Flaherty accessed on ancestry.com on October 19, 2015 ^ "Biography |". www.katechopin.org. Retrieved December 11, 2015. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024. ^ a b Toth, Emily (1990). "Reviews the essay "The Shadows of the First Biographer: The Case of Kate Chopin"". Southern Review (26). ^ a b c d "Short Story Criticism 'An Introduction to Kate Chopin 1851–1904'". Short Story Criticism. 116. 2008. ^ Seyersted, Per (1985). Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State UP. ISBN 978-0-8071-0678-5. ^ a b c d e O'Flaherty (1984). "Kate Chopin, An Introduction to (1851–1904)". Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. 14. ^ Toth, Emily (1990). Kate Chopin. William Morrow & Company, Inc. ISBN 9780688097073. ^ Walker, Nancy (2001). Kate Chopin: A Literary Life. Palgrave Publishers. ^ a b c Le Marquand, Jane. "Kate Chopin as Feminist: Subverting the French Androcentric Influence". Deep South 2 (1996) ^ a b c Shurbutt, Sylvia Bailey. "The Can River Characters and Revisionist Mythmaking in the Work of Kate Chopin". The Southern Literary. 68: 14–23. ^ Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening. "Interview: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory University". March 14, 2008 ^ a b c d Larrabee, Denise. "Chopin, Kate 1850–1904". American Writers, Retrospective Supplement 2. ^ a b c d "Kate Chopin Biography". ^ Foy, R.R. (1991). "Chopin's Desiree's Baby". Explicatory. No. 49. pp. 222–224. ^ Gibert, Teresa "Textual, Contextual and Critical Surprises in 'Desiree's Baby'" Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate. vol. 14.1–3. 2004/2005. pg. 38–67 ^ Chopin, Kate "A Visit to Avoyelles" Bayou Folk 1893 pg. 223–229 ^ a b c d e 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. ^ a b c d e Susan, Green. "An overview of The Awakening". Literature Resource Center. ^ a b c d e f Bender, Bert (September 1991). "The Teeth of Desire: The Awakening and The Descent of Man". American Literature. 63 (3): 459–473. doi:10.2307/2927243. JSTOR 2927243. ^ a b Mou, Xianfeng. "Kate Chopin's Narrative Techniques and Separate Space in The Awakening". The Southern Literary Journal. ^ a b Cutter, Martha. "The Search for a Feminine Voice in the Works of Kate Chopin". Unruly Tongue: Identity and Voice in American Women's Writing. 127: 87–109. ^ America Literature. United States of America: McDougal Littell. 2008. p. 758. ISBN 978-0-618-56866-6. ^ a b "XII. THE AWAKENING", Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories, University of Pennsylvania Press, January 31, 1932, doi:10.9783/9781512805659-015, ISBN 9781512805659 ^ Kessler, Carol Farley; Toth, Emily (December 1991). "Kate Chopin: A Life of the Author of The Awakening". American Literature. 63 (4): 755. doi:10.2307/2926892. ISSN 0002-9831. JSTOR 2926892. ^ Franklin, Benjamin (2010). Research guide to American literature. Facts On File. ISBN 9780816078615. OCLC 699681835. ^ a b Toth, Emily (July 1999). "Emily Toth Thanks Kate Chopin". The Women's Review of Books. 16 (10/11): 34. doi:10.2307/4023250. ISSN 0738-1433. JSTOR 4023250. ^ a b Ostman, Heather; O'Donoghue, Kate (2015), Ostman, Heather; O'Donoghue, Kate (eds.), "Introduction: Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches", Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches, American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 1–11, doi:10.1057/9781137543967_1, ISBN 978-1-137-54396-7, retrieved January 19, 2022 ^ a b Kornasky, Linda (2011). ""Discovery of a Treasury": Orrick Johns and the Influence of Kate Chopin's The Awakening on Edith Summers Kelley's Weeds". Studies in American Naturalism. 6 (2): 197–215. doi:10.1353/san.2011.0025. ISSN 1944-6519. S2CID 145614976. ^ ("Introduction") to a copy of Chopin's short story "A Visit to Avoyelled", The Library of America, Facebook page, posted February 8, 2023, accessed 2/11/2023 ^ Wolfe, Linda (September 22, 1972). "There's Someone You Should Know". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 22, 2023. ^ Kate Chopin, The Awakening, Avon Books, 1972 0-380-00245-0 ^ Winn, Harbour (1992). "Echoes of Literary Sisterhood: Louisa May Alcott and Kate Chopin". Studies in American Fiction. 20 (2): 205–208. doi:10.1353/saf.1992.0000. ISSN 2158-415X. S2CID 162207140. ^ The awakening: a novel of beginnings. March 1, 1994. ^ Simons, Karen (Spring 1998). "Kate Chopin on the Nature of Things" (PDF). The Mississippi Quarterly. 51.2: p243. ^ "Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening – About the Program". www.pbs.org. Retrieved March 19, 2018. ^ "Treme – as a season ends, so does a life", The Atlantic, June 2010, accessed 25 June 2014 ^ Welborn, Vickie (October 1, 1888). "Loss of Kate Chopin House to fire 'devastating'". The Town Talk.[permanent dead link] ^ St. Louis Walk of Fame. "St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees". stlouiswalkoffame.org. Archived from the original on October 31, 2012. Retrieved April 25, 2013. ^ "Kate Chopin Bust Unveiled". West End Word. March 14, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2014. Further reading[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to Kate Chopin. Wikisource has original works by or about:Kate Chopin "Kate O'Flaherty Chopin" (1988) A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. I, p. 176 Koloski, Bernard (2009) Awakenings: The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA. ISBN 978-0-8071-3495-5 Eliot, Lorraine Nye (2002) The Real Kate Chopin, Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA. ISBN 0-8059-5786-3 Berkove, Lawrence I (2000) "Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour'." American Literary Realism 32.2, pp. 152–158. Toth, Emily (1999) Unveiling Kate Chopin. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS. ISBN 1-57806-101-6 External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kate Chopin. Works by Kate Chopin in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by or about Kate Chopin at Internet Archive Works by Kate Chopin at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Kate Chopin, Novelist And Short Story Writer Kate Chopin at American Literature Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening, PBS documentary vteKate ChopinNovels At Fault (1890) The Awakening (1899) Short stories "A Point at Issue!" (1889) "A No-Account Creole" (1891) "At the 'Cadian Ball" (1892) "Beyond the Bayou" (1893) "Désirée's Baby" (1893) "Ripe Figs" (1893) "A Respectable Woman" (1894) "At Chênière Caminada" (1894) "Madame Célestin's Divorce" (1894) "The Story of an Hour" (1894) "Her Letters" (1895) "Regret" (1895) "The Kiss" (1895) "Athénaïse" (1896) "Lilacs" (1896) "Ozème's Holiday" (1896) "A Pair of Silk Stockings" (1897) "Fedora" (1897) "The Storm" (1898) "A Vocation and a Voice" (1902) "Charlie" (1969) "The Locket" (1969) Children's stories "The Lilies" "A Very Fine Fiddle" "Boulot and Boulotte" "The Benitous Slave" "A Turkey Hunt" "Old Aunt Peggy" Collections Bayou Folk (1894) A Night in Acadie (1897) Plays An Embarrassing Position (1895) Adaptations Grand Isle The Joy That Kills Related Kate Chopin House (Louisiana) Kate Chopin House (St. Louis) vteNew Woman of the late 19th century (born before 1880) 19th-century feminism First-wave feminism Women's history Artists Louise Abbéma Elenore Abbott Nina E. Allender Sophie Gengembre Anderson Cornelia Barns Cecilia Beaux Enella Benedict Rosa Bonheur Jennie Augusta Brownscombe Julia Margaret Cameron Mary Cassatt Minerva J. Chapman Émilie Charmy Alice Brown Chittenden Elizabeth Coffin Emma Lampert Cooper Susan Stuart Frackelton Wilhelmina Weber Furlong Elizabeth Shippen Green Ellen Day Hale Laura Knight Anna Lea Merritt Elizabeth Nourse Violet Oakley Rose O'Neill Elizabeth Okie Paxton Emily Sartain Pamela Colman Smith Jessie Willcox Smith Annie Swynnerton Candace Wheeler Anne Whitney Writers Elizabeth Barrett Browning Mona Caird Kate Chopin Annie Sophie Cory Ella D'Arcy Ella Hepworth Dixon Maria Edgeworth George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright) Sarah Grand Amy Levy Olive Schreiner Educators Alice Freeman Palmer Literature aboutthe New Woman Isabel Archer in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (serialized 1880–81) Elizabeth Barrett's Aurora Leigh (1856) Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) Victoria Cross' Anna Lombard (1901) Ella Hepworth Dixon's The Story of a Modern Woman Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856) Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879) Henry Arthur Jones's The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894) Henry James' novella Daisy Miller (serialized 1878) Amy Levy's The Romance of a Shop (1888) George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893) George Bernard Shaw's Candida (1898) H. 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DÉSIRÉE’S BAby

"Vintage Antique Style Baby Bassinet - Natural Wicker - with padding" by Wicker Paradise is licensed under CC by 2.0.

As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmonde drove over to L'Abri to see Désirée and the baby.

It made her laugh to think of Désirée with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday that Désirée was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmonde had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar.

The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for "Dada." That was as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she might have strayed there of her own accord, for she was of the toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton Mais kept, just below the plantation. In time Madame Valmonde abandoned every speculation but the one that Désirée had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,-the idol of Valmonde.

It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.

Monsieur Valmonde grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from Paris, and contained himself with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married.

Madame Valmonde had not seen Désirée and the baby for four weeks. When she reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France, and she having loved her own land too well ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house. Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their thick-leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall. Young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime.

The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning herself.

Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Désirée and kissed her, holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the child.

"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language spoken at Valmonde in those days.

"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Désirée, "at the way he has grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails,-real finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"

The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, "Mais si, Madame."

"And the way he cries," went on Désirée, "is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."

Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the fields.

"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?"

Désirée's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.

"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not,-that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn't true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma," she added, drawing Madame Valmonde's head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he hasn't punished one of them-not one of them-since baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work-he only laughed, and said Negrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me."

What Désirée said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature greatly. This was what made the gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.

When the baby was about three months old, Désirée awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Désirée was miserable enough to die.

She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche's little quadroon boys-half naked too-stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Désirée's eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.

She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come, at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress was pointing to the door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished floor, on his bare tiptoes.

She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of fright.

Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went to a table and began to search among some papers which covered it.

"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. "Armand," she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. "Armand," she panted once more, clutching his arm, "look at our child. What does it mean? tell me."

He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him. "Tell me what it means!" she cried despairingly.

"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not white."

A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her with unwonted courage to deny it. "It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair," seizing his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand," she laughed hysterically.

"As white as La Blanche's," he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child.

When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame Valmonde.

"My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For God's sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live."

The answer that came was brief:

"My own Désirée: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child."

When the letter reached Désirée she went with it to her husband's study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.

In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.

He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp with agonized suspense.

"Yes, go."

"Do you want me to go?"

"Yes, I want you to go."

He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.

She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door, hoping he would call her back.

"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.

He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.

Désirée went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre gallery with it. She took the little one from the nurse's arms with no word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked away, under the live-oak branches.

It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still fields the negroes were picking cotton.

Désirée had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmonde. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds.

She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.

Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L'Abri. In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the material which kept this fire ablaze.

A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre, which had already been fed with the richness of a priceless layette. Then there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too, and embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of rare quality.

The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that Désirée had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Désirée's; it was part of an old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband's love:-

"But above all," she wrote, "night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery."

Current Page: 1

GRADE:11

Additional Information:

Rating: A Words in the Passage: 890 Unique Words: 757 Sentences: 154
Noun: 653 Conjunction: 186 Adverb: 141 Interjection: 4
Adjective: 155 Pronoun: 303 Verb: 413 Preposition: 234
Letter Count: 9,389 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Conversational Difficult Words: 401
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