Kate OFlaherty Chopins Biography Essay -- essays research papers fc

Kate OFlaherty Chopin was born 8 February 1851 into a prominent family in St.Louis, Missouri. Her father, Thomas OFlaherty, an Irish immigrant, was a successful St. Louis merchant who was killed in a railroad accident when Kate was only five years old. Kates mother, Eliza was left a wealthy widow and raised Kate in a household " flood by vigorous widows her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother . . . a community of women who stressed learning, curiosity, and financial license" (Toth, 187). Kate was formally educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis where she kept a commonplace book "in which the thoughtful teenager recorded themes that appear in her later fiction, among them womens roles and the conflict between inclination and duty" (Toth, 187). On 9 June 1870, two years after graduating from the Academy, Kate hook up with Oscar Chopin, the son of a planter from Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. They were married for twelve and a fractional ye ars, spending nine in New Orleans and three in Cloutierville, Natchitoches Parish. During this time, Kate gave birth to five boys and one girl. "Devoting herself to her family and household, she still managed to reconcile the needs of her avow being with the expectations of her conventional milieu. She dressed unconventionally and smoked cigarettes long forwards smoking was an approved practice among women in her class" (Inge, 91). When Oscar died of malaria in 1882, he left Kate twelve thousand ...