Editing Kate Chopin (section)

=== 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.