Kate Chopin—You Go Glen Coco

“She was the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction… She was something of a pioneer in the amoral treatment of sexuality, of divorce, and of woman’s urge for an existential authenticity. She is in many respects a modern writer, particularly in her awareness of the complexities of truth and the complications of freedom.”

-Per Seyersted, 1969 in his biography on Chopin

Kate was born in 1850 and died in 1904. She was born as Catherine O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri. In Kate’s family she was the only one out of five children to live past the age of 25. When she was young her father was killed in an accident, forcing the family to move. They moved in with Kate’s Grandmother and Great Grandmother. All three of the adult women were widows. Farther more Kate’s Great Great Grandmother was the first woman in St. Louis to legally obtain a separation from her (ex) husband (katechopin.org). After the separation she continued to raise 5 children as well as ran a shipping business. Needless to say Kate comes from a long line of successful, driven and strong women. At the time, this was unique; it also carried over into her real live and her literary works. Her characters were mostly sensitive, intelligent women. She was a married woman when she was 20 to Oscar Chopin who was 25. After they were married they moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. Together they had 6 kids before Kate was 28 years old. Kate herself was a widow at 32. Before Oscar died he was not such a good businessman, his business which was involving cotton and supplies like sugar, flour basically a General Store, took a hit. This forced the family to move. Her life in New Orleans had a large influence on her writing. She was known as a color writer and a feminist writer; because of her characters as well as including local dialect in her writing. In 1894 Kate traveled to Western Association of Writers in Indiana (katechopin.org). Here she published an essay, this is a quote from it.

“Among these people,” she says, “are to be found an earnestness in the acquirement and dissemination of book-learning, a clinging to the past and conventional standards, an almost Creolean sensitiveness to criticism and a singular ignorance of, or disregard for, the value of the highest art forms.”

“There is,” she continues, “a very, very big world lying not wholly in northern Indiana, nor does it lie at the antipodes, either. It is human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of the veil with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it.”