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The Feminist View of Kate Chopin Kate O’Flaherty Chopin was born February 8, 1851 into a prominent family in St. Louis. Her father was an Irish immigrant and was a successful St. Louis merchant who was killed in a train accident when Kate was only five. That only left her, her widowed mother, widowed grand-ma, and a few brothers and sisters… “A community of women who stressed learning, curiosity, and financial independence”(seyersted, 20) On June 9, 1870, two years after graduating from the Academy, Kate Married Oscar Chopin. They were married for twelve years. During this time, Kate gave birth to five boys and one girl. ”Devoted herself to her family and household, she still managed to reconcile the needs of her own being. She dressed unconventionally and smoked cigarettes long before smoking was approved for women by society”(20) When Oscar died in 1882, Kate and her kids moved back to St. Louis to be with her mother. Not long after her mother also died. This was a very trying time for Kate. Shortly after in 1888 Kate began her fiction-writing career. Her first story was published when she was thirty-nine. For fifteen years Kate wrote several short stories and poems. She then died in 1904. In her many years of writing Kate wrote many feminist point of views on being trapped or infidelity. One of the many stories was “ the story of the hour”. The short story “the story of the hour” written by Kate Chopin was one of the most well known short stories of it’s time. “ The story of the hour” is written from a feminist point of view on how feeling trapped in marriage can be over whelming. This story is about unexpected results when a wife discovers she is finally free. The short story “the story of the hour” starts out when Mrs. Mallard finds out from her sister that her husband has died in a train accident.
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