Editing Kate Chopin (section)

== Literary themes ==
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 people|Louisiana Creole]] and [[Cajuns|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.<ref name="intro"/>

Chopin's writing style was influenced by her admiration of the contemporary French writer [[Guy de Maupassant]], known for his short stories:

{{quote|...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...<ref name=lemarquand>Le Marquand, Jane. "Kate Chopin as Feminist: Subverting the French Androcentric Influence". ''Deep South'' 2 (1996)</ref>}}
[[File:Kate Chopin in riding habit.jpg|thumb|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.<ref name=":522">{{cite journal|last=Shurbutt|first=Sylvia Bailey|title=The Can River Characters and Revisionist Mythmaking in the Work of Kate Chopin|journal=The Southern Literary|volume=68|pages=14–23}}</ref> The biggest myth Chopin focused on was the "Victorian notion of women's somewhat anemic sexuality" and [[The Storm (short story)|"The Storm"]] is the best example of Kate Chopin using that myth through a character set on fulfilling her complete sexual potential.<ref name=":522" /> For instance, in [[The Storm (short story)|"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.<ref name=":522" />

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:

<blockquote>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.<ref name=story/></blockquote>

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 movement|feminist]] nor a [[Suffragette|suffragist]], she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women's ability to be strong."<ref>''Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening''. [https://www.pbs.org/katechopin/interviews.html "Interview: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory University"]. March 14, 2008</ref> 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.<ref name="intro"/>

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."<ref name=lemarquand/>

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.<ref name=lemarquand/>

=== Early works ===
Kate Chopin began her writing career with her first story published in the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''.<ref name=":62">{{cite journal|last=Larrabee|first=Denise|title=Chopin, Kate 1850–1904|journal=American Writers, Retrospective Supplement 2}}</ref><ref name=":03">{{cite web|url=https://www.katechopin.org/biography/|title=Kate Chopin Biography}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":62" /><ref name=":03" /> In 1890, her first novel, ''At Fault'', about a young widow and the sexual constraints of women, was published privately.<ref name=":62" /><ref name=":03" /> The protagonist demonstrates the initial theme of Kate Chopin's works when she began writing. In 1892, Chopin produced "[[Désirée's Baby]]", "Ripe Figs", and "At the 'Cadian Ball", which appeared in ''Two Tales''<!-- Is that a magazine? It's not mentioned anywhere else in the article. --> that year, and eight of her other stories were published.<ref name=":62" /><ref name=":03" />

The short story "Désirée's Baby" focuses on Chopin's experience with interracial relationships and communities of the [[Louisiana Creole people|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 by others. 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.&nbsp;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".<ref>{{cite news|last=Foy |first=R.&nbsp;R. |title=Chopin's Desiree's Baby|journal=Explicatory|number=49 |year=1991|pages=222–224}}</ref> 

"Desiree's Baby" was first published in an 1893 issue of ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'', alongside "A Visit to Avoyelles", another of 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 in which they live. In contrast, "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.<ref>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</ref><ref>Chopin, Kate, "A Visit to Avoyelles", ''Bayou Folk'', 1893, pp. 223–229.</ref>

Martha Cutter argues that Kate Chopin demonstrates feminine resistance to patriarchal society through her short stories.<ref name=":222">{{cite journal|last=Cutter|first=Martha|title=Losing the Battle but Winning the War: Resistance to Patriarchal Discourse in Kate Chopin's Short Fiction|url=http://go.galegroup.com.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2048/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T001&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CH1420056300&docType=Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=&prodId=LitRC&contentSet=GALE%7CH1420056300&searchId=R5&userGroupName=viva23470&inPS=true|journal=Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers|volume=68}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":222"/> 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.<ref name=":222"/> 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.<ref name=":222"/>

In 1893, she wrote "Madame Célestin's Divorce", and 13 of her stories were published. In 1894, "[[The Story of an Hour]]" and "A&nbsp;Respectable woman" were published by ''Vogue''. ''Bayou Folk'', a collection of 23 of Chopin's stories, was a success for Chopin in 1894, published by [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|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'' ===
{{Main|The Awakening (Chopin novel)}}
[[File:The Awakening Chopin.jpg|thumb|First edition title page of ''[[The Awakening (Chopin novel)|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.<ref name=":4">{{cite web|url=http://go.galegroup.com.eznvcc.vccs.edu:2048/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T001&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=2&docId=GALE%7CH1420000416&docType=Work+overview%2C+Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=&prodId=LitRC&contentSet=GALE%7CH1420000416&searchId=R1&userGroupName=viva23470&inPS=true|title=An overview of The Awakening|last=Susan|first=Green|website=Literature Resource Center}}</ref> The female characters in ''The Awakening'' went beyond the standards of social norms of the time.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3">{{cite journal|last=Bender|first=Bert|date=September 1991|title=The Teeth of Desire: The Awakening and The Descent of Man|journal=American Literature|volume=63|issue=3|pages=459–473|doi=10.2307/2927243|jstor=2927243}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{cite journal|last=Mou|first=Xianfeng|title=Kate Chopin's Narrative Techniques and Separate Space in The Awakening|journal=The Southern Literary Journal}}</ref> The protagonist has sexual desires and questions the sanctity of motherhood.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":7" /> 
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.<ref name=":4" /> It now is considered a classic of feminist fiction.<ref name=":4" /> Chopin reacted to the negative events happening to her by commenting:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
According to Bender, Chopin was intrigued by Darwin's ''[[The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex|The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex]]''.<ref name=":3" /> Although she agreed with the theory of [[evolution]], Chopin disagreed with Darwin's theory of [[sexual selection]] and the female's role, and she expressed her opposition in ''The Awakening'', in which, Bender argues, Chopin references ''The Descent of Man''.<ref name=":3" /> 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 need for reproduction or love.<ref name=":3" /> Bender argues this idea through the examples of Edna Pontellier in ''The Awakening'', Mrs. Baroda in "A&nbsp;Respectable Woman", and Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour".<ref name=":3" />

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.<ref name=":5"/> Today, ''The Awakening'' is said to be one of the five top favorite novels in literature courses all over America.<ref>{{Cite book|title=America Literature|publisher=McDougal Littell|year=2008|isbn=978-0-618-56866-6|location=United States of America|pages=758}}</ref>