Kate Chopin's Controversial Views

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Taking on the role of a high society lady as well as wife and new mother,
Chopin fit in well with the New Orleans culture. She enjoyed the Louisiana
atmosphere so well that most of her writings were based here. Chopin
continued living in Louisiana raising her six young children until the
sudden death of her husband brought her back to St., Louis (Skaggs 3).

Oscar Chopin died while their youngest child, Lelia was only three. Soon
after Chopin moved her family to St. Louis to be with her dying mother. In
the grief of her losses Chopin had to rediscover who she was. This
challenge came out in her writing of heroines searching for self-
understanding (Skaggs 3). No longer Eliza O'Flaherty's daughter or Oscar
Chopin's wife, Kate Chopin was forced to find a new role for herself. Her
new role would be a writer.

A few key figures in her life influenced Chopin to write. Doctor Frederick
Kolbemheyer was a life long friend on whose support she always relied.
Raised in Austria and then ...

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Guy de Maupassant.
Chopin describes Maupassant by writing, "Here was a man who escaped from
tradition and authority ... looked out upon life through his own being with
his own eyes; and who, in a direct and simple was, told up what he saw."
(Taylor 159). Chopin translated eight of his works and through him
developed her style of writing. She shared his concept of a hero :

"An isolated world-weary and misanthropic hero who revels in his own
sensuality; who trusts in nature and distrusts human relationships,
especially love; who experiences a sense of liberation through solitary
walks and confidences in his writing... and who is strongly drawn to death
as a solution to the repetitive ...

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