Synopses & Reviews
This is the true, unvarnished life story of the girl who grew up to write
The Awakening, a masterpiece published 100 years ago. With its portrayal of a woman whose sexual desires take her outside marriage, it rocked American literature's cozy conception of womanhood.
In Unveiling Kate Chopin Emily Toth, the foremost authority on Chopin's life and works, creates a sharply revealing portrait of a modern woman in a Victorian world. Born in St. Louis in 1850, Kate O'Flaherty was raised by wealthy, feisty widows and educated by brilliant nuns. She endured a mysterious "outrage" committed against her by Union soldiers in her teens and suffered what moderns now call a "loss of voice." But she survived to become a lively, dangerously clever social observer.
She had the talent and then the life experiences to become a writer. Her Louisiana-born husband, Oscar Chopin, had grown up in France and did not restrict her. In New Orleans (where she gossiped with the painter Edgar Degas) and then in rural Louisiana (where the neighbors hated her), Kate produced six children in nine years. Yet she retained her individuality and her wicked sense of humor. After her husband's sudden death, Kate's affair with another woman's husband was a village scandal--but following the lessons of the French women who raised her, she knew when to leave.
After the death of her mother, Kate reinvented herself as the author of engaging short stories set in Louisiana. Many had unusual social messages. "In Sabine" opposed domestic violence. "At the 'Cadian Ball" supported sexual expression for women. "Odalie Misses Mass" suggested that interracial friendships between African American and white women were possible. She condemned the idle rich and celebrated single mothers. To promote her own career, she created the first salon in St. Louis and became the first woman in the city to become a professional fiction writer. Although she claimed to be un-serious about her craft, newly discovered manuscripts, which Toth mines for the insights they offer, reveal her as a dedicated artist who wanted to reach her readers' hearts.
Toth portrays Chopin as a bright, ambitious woman who ruffled staid souls, and when she published The Awakening, her foes pounced. Many reviews of the novel were uncomprehending; many were vicious and her next book was canceled. Her family suffered; her health declined; and Chopin died in 1904, silenced ahead of her time. Now, a century later, Toth sees Chopin as a woman of unique wit and astonishing talent and as the daring author who wrote the most radical, notorious American novel of the late nineteenth century.
Emily Toth, a professor of English and Women's Studies at Louisiana State University, is the author or editor of ten books, including Kate Chopin's Private Papers, "A Vocation and a Voice": Stories by Kate Chopin, and Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia.
Synopsis
A vivid biography of the author of The Awakening marking the 100th anniversary of its publication
Synopsis
Unveiling Kate Chopin by Emily Toth A vivid new biography of the author of The Awakening marking the 100th anniversary of its publication Aided by newly discovered diaries and manuscripts, Emily Toth tells the unvarnished story of the passionate Irish American girl from St. Louis who grew up to write The Awakening. Published in 1899, Kate Chopin's novel about a sensual, artistic woman whose desires cannot be contained by marriage and motherhood stunned and infuriated Chopin's contemporaries. She commits unutterable crimes against polite society, wrote one fuming reviewer. In Unveiling Kate Chopin, Toth, the foremost authority on Chopin's life and works, draws on manuscripts recently found in a Massachusetts warehouse and paints a haunting portrait of this woman who married a Louisiana Frenchman, mothered six children, and wrote a novel that was too worldly for Victorian America. She celebrates the ambitious Chopin as an artist of unique wit and astonishing talent, as one of the first authors to craft a public image (by creating a salon and inventing networking in St. Louis), as a writer of short stories set in the Louisiana bayou country, and especially as the daring author of the most radical, notorious American novel of the late nineteenth century. Emily Toth is a professor of English and women's studies at Louisiana State University.
Table of Contents
ch. 1.Girls and women --ch. 2.Spoils of war --ch. 3.Voice of a young woman --ch. 4.Belle and bride --ch. 5.Walking in New Orleans, swimming at Grand Isle --ch. 6.Cloutierville: the talk of the town --ch. 7.St. Louis and At fault --ch. 8.Professional writer --ch. 9.Writer, her reviewers, and her markets --ch. 10.World of writing and friends --ch. 11.Night, love, war --ch. 12.Awakening --ch. 13.Aftermath.