Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening and her short stories for money while she raised her kids. I'm a bit nervous about saying so, but she claimed she barely proofred her work.
Chopin wrote in the 1800's, but her stories can still raise a bit of a scandal in class discussions. I don't want to give away too much, since most students will not have read "The Storm," yet, but here are a few things that to me seem worth your comments.
- Why are or aren't things OK at the end of "The Storm"?
- If this kind of thing goes against the morés of the 1800's, why was Chopin so popular. What, if anything, does that tell us about the general practice of censorship?
- Kate Chopin's works became less known in the early 20th Century, but they have undergone fresh popularity after the 1970's.
- Are Chopin's writings useful in the way they would have been when they were written?
1 comment:
Kate Chopin had somewhat of a difficult marrige. She married young and her husbands business failed. So they ended up moving Louisiana and open up a general store. Her husband died of an illness and she was left alone to manage the planation and the business. She also had an affair with a married farmer. In addition to that she was suffering from a nurvous break-down and used writing as a way to calm her down. So this is a small brief background of the writer who has very strong influence and may have been part of the earliest feminiest (equal rights for women) movment. By readers understanding this, people can understand where she is comming from with her stories and why they are controversal even to this day. They involve women being able to cheat in their husbands which break away from the traditional house wife/woman perception.
At the end of the Storm things are still not right because of what was done. Although everything seems alright, her husband is back Calixta seems happy he brought food, that does not change anything. The fact that she was adulterous and conducted an affair just to rekindle an intimae past with someone else is not right. Upon marrige through time one takes a vow for each other. And nonetheless, she broke that vow. During which time she was separated from her own son and husband. And while those closest to her might be in danger she was selfish to do such a thing. And there might be a chance she had gotten pregnant and it could have been worse for everyone. The man she cheated with ent back to his family and things seem back to normal but what he did is unchangable and is morally wrong especially in 1800's.
Her work was popular due to the fact that it was different from traditional views. Also this tells us that censorship is controlled by only a few individuals who decide to exercise it.
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