I found it amazingly similar that Kate Chopin's and her characters share extraordinary strong personalities and lives. Kate Chopin was a woman ahead of her time; INDEPENDENT. As a young child, her father died in a train accident and she was left to be raised by mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. All of these women were widows. From an early start there was a strong, powerful, and self-dependent, female influence in her life. Soon after Chopin married her husband he died of swamp fever. She was left to raise 5 boys and 2 girls all of whom were born before she was twenty-eight years old. From her early start she saw strong woman and she herself was forced to become a strong woman because of tragedy that had befallen her family. Her own personal life surely influenced her writings and the characters that she wrote about. In her short stories, At the Cadian Ball and The Storm, Chopin creates this very strong, sexual, and independent character Calxita. Claxita unlike many of her female counterparts of the time feels and acts like she is in charge of the world around her and she deserves that right. Calixta, I think is a reflection of Chopin herself. When Bobinot proposed marriage to her Calixta accepts it on the premise that she is doing Bobinot a favor. I think that Calixta may be a reflection of how Chopin believes that women can be independent of men. Having no real strong male influences in her life Chopin was reflecting her belief that woman could take charge which was a mostly unpopular belief at the time.
Calixta's affair may have been a metaphor for Chopin's own loveless life. Her husband dying at such a young age may have caused Chopin to feel devoid of a meaningful relationship. Claxita used Alcee as a means to get something that she had been looking for. Calixta's search could have represented for Chopin own search for a relationship.
I think that Chopin may have been using her own characters as a method of portraying her own life. The way that she viewed the world and what she wanted was shown through Calixta’s personality.
5 comments:
That's a really interesting perspective to take on saying that Kate Chopin was her characters in a sense. After reading the first couple of paragraphs on her biography, I think I tend to agree with that opinion. Chopin was surrounded by strong female figures in her life, and then following her circumstances was forced to become one herself. Both Calixta and Desiree were strong in their own specific ways. Although Calixta was portrayed as being a very sexual woman, which could come across negatively to many readers in Chopin's time, Chopin doesn't make her out to be a negative character. She is very sexual, but it's more symbolizing her independence and that she doesn't need to be taken care of by a man, she's her own person, and has her own mind. Desiree is also an independent woman because even though she is thrown out of her home and her husbands life, she doesn't give in, and she won't go back to live with her mother. She knows she isn't the one to blame, but she still doesn't pity herself. She deals with her pain and her problem in her own way, and I'm sure Chopin also was independent thinker and dealt with many hardships on her own as a woman.
I definitely like what you said about Chopin's characters being a reflection of herself. The reoccurring elements of a sexual, independent, and empowered women, combined with what we know about Chopin's life, seem to go along with how she would have at least liked to view herself. I also liked how you touched on the historical factors and how these affected Chopin's life and her writing. I hadn't thought about the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the "social change" you mention was occurring right around this time period, but it is an interesting point, and I'm glad you brought it up. Women did fit into the "modern" world the South was entering much more than they did the agrarian lifestyle.
Although I always thought that authors put some of their own life experiences into their work I think that you really made an interesting connection that I hadn't thought about. I like that Chopin writes strongly about women, and I like how you connected it to her life as well. She really portrayed the women in her stories very strongly. One thing that I'm a little unsure of is how Calixta allows Bobinot to marry her. It seems that if she was such a strong character she wouldn't have just settled for him, but she surprisingly she did.
Also I like how in the comment that you left me you point out that Armand may have been adopted as well. I hadn't ever really thought of that... thanks : )
I thought the same way about the way in which Chopin portrayed her characters. It definately seemed as if she had a piece of herself in her characters. By reading about her past you can see that they have strong connections such as the independence of each of them. In each story the women understand that their own choices are the ones in which they must deal with in the end, and even when Desiree should be weak at moments, she fights through those moments. Chopin's characters are a great influence for everyone, not just women, as a way to be strong and independent despite whatever misfortunes come your way.
Kyle,
I definitely feel that Kate Chopin’s women characters in her short stories are a reflection of herself. I feel that she is trying to go against the stereotypical women of her time. She wanted to cause a commotion in order to open up peoples’ eyes and show them that women are actually human being with feelings. She wanted to show that she was a unique woman with her own thoughts and ideas. I like how you said that Chopin might have even been telling her own story through her writings. This could very well be a possibility; especially that she would even write her stories around the house with all her children surrounding her. This is a new perspective that I did not come up with but very well could be true.
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