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MARCH IS WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
For
Women’s History Month, the Orange Park Campus Library is featuring
Kate Chopin.
“Chopin was born in St. Louis in 1851.
Her parents, Thomas and Eliza O'Flaherty, were wealthy, slave-owning
Catholics who held a prominent position in their community. When
Chopin was four, her father died in a train accident, and she was
raised by her French-Creole mother and great-grandmother. At seventeen,
she graduated from the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Two years later,
in 1870, she married Oscar Chopin, a Louisiana businessman of French-Creole
descent. In New Orleans, where she and her husband lived until 1879,
Chopin was at the center of Southern aristocratic social life. During
this period, she bore six children. In 1879, when Oscar's business
failed, the family moved to Cloutierville, where Oscar's family
owned a farm and a plantation store. When Oscar died in 1882, Chopin
was left with six children and meager financial resources. The family
moved back to St. Louis in 1884.
At the age of thirty-nine, Chopin began
writing poetry and fiction. Her early short stories were published
in magazines in St. Louis and New Orleans, and were influenced by
writers such as Guy de Maupassant and Moliere. Most of her stories
are set in Louisiana, and they portray characters as diverse as
Southern belles, Arcadians and Creoles, mulattos and blacks. The
stories center around the themes of class relations, relationships
between men and women, and feminine sexuality. In the 1890s, Chopin
began receiving national attention for her fiction. She published
Bayou Folk in 1894, and A Night in Acadie, which contains her often
anthologized short story "The Story of an Hour," in 1897.
The success of these two collections made Chopin financially independent
and nationally known as a major author. In 1899, Chopin published
The Awakening, now regarded as her masterpiece. The novel's frank
treatment of an independent woman who, after an extramarital affair
and a sexual "awakening," commits suicide rather than
conform to society's mores, provoked outrage among readers and critics.
The novel was banned in St. Louis and elsewhere. As a result of
the hostile reception to the novel and difficulties with publishers,
Chopin wrote very little at the end of her life. Five years after
the publication of The Awakening, Chopin died of a stroke in St.
Louis on August 22, 1904.”
"Kate Chopin." LitFinder Contemporary Collection. Detroit:
Gale, 2007. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 1 Mar. 2010.
Interested in learning more? Why not check out
a website dedicated
to Ms. Chopin’s life and works? This site is produced
by the Kate Chopin International Society, and is full of interesting
information. Also check out the resources
available at the SJRCC Libraries.
Enjoy!
- Eric Biggs
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| ORANGE PARK CAMPUS
LIBRARY RESOURCES |
Recent
Acquisitions - New books, DVDs, and audiobooks
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on the Orange Park Campus? Look up the item in LINCC
and request it - we'll send it to your campus! |
Take a break from studying and check out our
growing collection
of audiobooks! (Available for check out by students, faculty and
staff.) Click a sort option at the top of the screen to change the
order of the list. |