To understand Kate Chopin’s writing style, you must first understand her life. She was born Katherine O’Flaherty in 1850 to an Irish and French family In St. Louis, Missouri. Her grandmother and great-grandmother lived with them and were great influences in her life and later in her writing. Chopin learned French and female endurance from living in a house full of women. Her great-grandmother also told her stories about her own grandmother, who ran a

Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women’s ability to be strong…There’s no indication that…she regretted her marriage, or regretted being a mother. (A Re-Awakening)

Do I agree with this? Partly, it seems to be that through this story, Chopin is saying a lot about her religion and her beliefs. I don’t necessarily believe that Chopin is going against her religion, I do; however, believe that she isn’t exactly supporting it either. According to an interview on PBS, Chopin grew up knowing that God loves everyone, no matter what they do are who they are. Chopin also believed that men and women could be “equally valuable without being equal” (A Re-Awakening). Chopin uses her Catholicism as a way to interpret what a woman of her time was supposed to be like and what she thought they should really be like. Clearly, her religion played an important role in her writing and her themes. Both her Catholic theme and her adultery theme are present in “Madame Celestin’s Divorce.” The short story is about a young wife that flirts with a lawyer and begins to contemplate the idea of separating from her husband, despite her Catholic beliefs.

In conclusion, Chopin did not write in a first-person point of view. Her characters’ feelings were portrayed by their interactions, not through her perspective. Chopin wrote her stories based on her beliefs and her upbringings, she did not write about the unknown because that wasn’t her style. Chopin was also a brave woman of her time; she had to be to write about adultery and women’s sexuality, things that were taboo for a woman to talk about in the era she lived in. After all the things she went through to write about the topics she wanted to write about, she is now widely accepted by society. Through her death she is indeed “Free! Body and soul free!”

Another element in Chopin’s stories is the way she portrays the lives of African Americans during that era. One of the Stories that I have actually read by Chopin that uses this feature is “Desiree’s Baby.” As a toddler, Desiree was abandoned and found by a nice couple by the name of the Valmondes. She never knows her biological family or their background, but accepts that of the Valmondes. She gets married to a very prestigious man by the name of Armand. The two have a baby together, but the relationship begins to dwindle as t

Some topics in this essay:
PBS Kate, Awakening I’m, Virgin Mary, Oscar Chopin, African Americans, Louis Missouri, Baby” Armand, Awakening Edna’s, African American, Re-Awakening Chopin, “desiree’s baby”, african american, main character, “free body soul, short story, “the storm”, chopin’s writing, writing style, believe chopin, chopin believed, chopin’s writing style, body soul free”, theme adultery,