The Short Story

Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was born in 1850 in St. Louis Missouri and had a tumultuous childhood. The only one of five children to survive past the year of twenty-five, her father was then killed when she was five years old.

 

From then on, she grew up surrounded by single, strong-minded women figures and etnered the Sacred Heart Academy where she established herself as a capable and intelligent pupil with a somewhat critical and caustic air.

 

She published her first novel, At Fault, in 1890 followed later by one of her most famous works, The Awakening. Unfortunately, the Awakening preceded its time and she experienced strong societal backlash from the topics explored.

 

After experiencing the general rebuttal from society, for the rest of her life she wrote very little except occasionally a few short stories.