Athenaise by Kate Chopin
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Script: Kate Chopin—An introduction.
o Catherine O'Flaherty was born on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Irish immigrant Thomas O'Flaherty and his wife Eliza. Kate, as she came to be called, was only five years old, Kate's father was killed in a railroad accident, and from that point on she was raised primarily under the influence of the female trio of her Great-Grandmother Victoire Verdon Charleville, her grandmother Athénaïse Charleville Faris, and her mother Eliza. This female influence extended to Kate's education by the nuns at the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, which was also where she met her lifelong friend, Kitty Garasché. The trauma of Kate's father's death was followed in 1863 by her great-grandmother's death in January, and her half-brother's death in February. Understandably depressed, a nun at school encouraged Kate to deal with her feelings by writing in a Commonplace Book, which she filled with a collection of personal diary entries and favorite literary passages.
o In 1870, Kate married Oscar Chopin, and following a honeymoon tour of several American and European cities, they set up their home in New Orleans, Louisiana where Oscar was in the cotton trade business. Kate's behaviors, like smoking cigarettes and walking through the city unaccompanied, frequently shocked her conservative in-laws. This streak of independence, however, did not seem to bother her husband, with whom she had six children between the years of 1871 and 1879. While living in New Orleans, the Chopins spent summer vacations on Grand Isle—a place that would show up as a one of the primary settings for Chopin's novel The Awakening.
o In 1879, Oscar's business was failing, so they moved to the Chopin family plantation in Cloutierville, where Oscar ran a general store in the small village.
o In 1882, Oscar contracted Malaria and died, leaving Kate alone to raise their six children.
o After her husband's death, there were rumors of Kate having an affair with a married man. Affairs became a major theme in Chopin's writing, and the unapologetic stance her characters take is thought to represent her own feelings on the matter.
o Kate and her children moved back to St. Louis in 1884 to live with her mother and grandmother once again, and the grief of being a widow was compounded the next year when her mother died from cancer.
o Kate turned to writing once again as an outlet for her emotional turmoil, and with the added benefit of the income she received when she started to have her work published.
o In 1889, Kate had her first short story published, and the following year her first novel, At Fault, was published. This began a fifteen year period in which she continued to write and publish her work regularly.
o In 1897, Kate's grandmother died, at which time she began writing what would become her most controversial work, The Awakening.
o In 1899, The Awakening was published and received mostly negative reviews. Many critics and a large portion of the public viewed the protagonist's open defiance of social expectations and her unapologetic infidelity as immoral.
o After this poor reception, Kate only published her work sporadically.
o On August 22, 1904, after attending the St. Louis World's Fair, Kate died from what the doctor's believed to have been a cerebral hemorrhage.
o Although some of Kate's short stories were still read after her death, The Awakening, was for the most part forgotten until the 1960's when it became the focus of study for several literary scholars.