"Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin

"Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin (1893, 7 pages)

So far I have read and posted on three of Kate Chopin's (1851-1904-St Louis Missouri, USA) short stories  and her novella, The Awakening.     Chopin's stories are normally set in the southern states of the USA, those that left the union in order to be able to continue to have slaves (among other reasons).   I find her stories to be very evocative of this era.     Her lead characters are women frustrated by the social conventions of her day.   One can almost taste the mint julips while sitting on the veranda looking out at the huge live oak trees covered in Spanish moss and dreaming of "the old days".    Her work has received a lot of attention lately due in parts to its focus on the issues of women struggling against the bonds of paternalism in the late 19th century.    "Desiree's Baby" is one of her most famous short stories.

"Desiree's Baby" is set in Louisiana in the years right after the American Civil War (best guess for the date of the story is around 1870 or so).    The plot is simple and one must acknowledge a bit of a cliche.   A baby is found abandoned on the property of a wealthy land owner.    The family adopts her as their own daughter.   The family estate employs many black workers over whom the owner of the estate enjoyed "paternalistic control".   (Many free slaves never left their posts.)   Eighteen or so years go by and the baby grows into a beautiful young woman who attracts a wealthy suitor by whom she had a child outside of wedlock (a big scandal in those days).     I do not  want to give away more of the plot.   The ending is interesting and my interest was kept throughout.    Teachers should know the story uses language that is no longer politically correct.    If this issue can be dealt with, I think it would be a good class room story.

The story can be read online  in just a few minutes.    

Mel u

"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin

"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin (1894-5 pages)

I have recently read two works by Kate Chopin (1850 to 1904) which I greatly enjoyed.   The first of her works I read was "A Respectable Woman" and the second was her famous novella The Awaking.    Both of these works are set in Louisiana.    Both have as their central character a married woman in comfortable financial circumstances with a decent  husband who seems to  treat her  well.    Both of the women in these works are dissatisfied with their lives and seek to be free to pursue their lives unfettered by the bands of conventional society.    In both stories we are not given a concrete reason or offense that is driving the women from their husbands, who they acknowledge they "sort of" love.   There is just a vague but strong feeling that they are being somehow oppressed both by their husbands and the very institution of matrimony.   Both of the stories are beautifully written and evoke a strong sense of place and time.   If there is a common malady  in the lives of these women it is a lack of passion or connection with what some would call "the life force".

When Rebecca Reid  of Rebecca Reads (and manager of the Classics Circuit)  suggested in a comment that I might like "The Story of an Hour" also by Kate Chopin I decided to read it.   It is a very short story.    I read it online and in print it would be from three to five pages long.   For sure you can read it in just a few minutes.   Like the other two works by Chopin that I posted on this story is about a married woman with a decent seeming husband for whom she acknowledges feelings of love and who as far as we see treats her well.    She is for sure materially comfortable.   I read this story three times.    It is that good and is  really almost shocking in its impact.   

As the story opens Mrs Mallard gets some very bad news:

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

Mrs Mallard gazes out her window seemingly in shock but everywhere she looks she sees signs of new life:

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

Then her mind begins to break from its bonds:

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" 

There is more to the story than this and the ending is a tragic one but I hope some will want to read it so I will not give away any more of the plot.

This is a wonderful story.    As a married man with a great wife it did make me think.    The work of Chopin might not be quite on the level with that of Katherine Mansfield but she is for sure worth reading.

I think all of her stories can be read on line.    I read "The Story of an Hour" here.

If anyone has any suggestions as to short stories that they think are among the best please leave a comment.

Mel u

"The Awakening" By Kate Chopin

Chopin and her children

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899, 102 pages-read on line at Dailylit.com)

One of the benefits of my recent venture into the short story genre is it allows me to "try out" a writer prior to attempting a longer work and see if I might enjoy or appreciate  their longer works.   Last month I read and posted on Kate Chopin's (1850  to 1904) short story, "A Respectable Woman".   I was completely taken by her prose style and thought she did a very good job of creating a believable full world in just a few pages.   Her work is mostly set in late 19th century Louisiana in the southern USA where Chopin spent most of her life.    I have gone a bit into her background and literary import in my prior post on Chopin.

The Awakening has attracted a good bit of attention among book bloggers in the last year.    It is a story about a woman married to a decent successful man, with healthy happy children.   There is something missing in her life.    I think I can say this without spoiling the story for potential readers who will already know this as it is on the back cover of some of the editions.    She begins an affair with a man in her circle.    Chopin does a good job expressing the frustration of the woman.   We can feel the sensual void in her life.   To me the lead female character, Edna, seemed selfish and wallowing  in surface sensuality.   I know not everyone will agree with me.  My reaction to her (and there is not a suggestion  at all in the book that Chopin endorses the actions of Edna  for which a terrible price will be paid) attitude toward her children turned me against her. I did not find the character of the man she loved, Robert, especially well done and we have no sense of his feelings.   The consensus seems to be that her short stories are the best of her work.    This is not to say that this book cannot be completely enjoyed for its wonderful prose.   Here is a sample of some sections I especially liked:

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The motherwomen seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels.

Mrs. Pontellier was not a woman given to confidences, a characteristic hitherto contrary to her nature. Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life--that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.

The sentiment which she entertained for Robert in no way resembled that which she felt for her husband, or had ever felt, or ever expected to feel. She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own, and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that they concerned no one but herself.

On Chopin, I would say start with her short stories and if you love the prose style go on to The Awakening.
Dailylit.com has several of her short stories on line as well as The Awakening.    For those of us who live where there are basically no public libraries web pages like Dailylit.com are super valuable.

Things Mean a Lot has an very perceptive post on The Awakening and links to a number of other blog posts on it.   Other readers of the work have been more in sympathy with the central character Edna than I am.  I will read more of her stories.   

"A Respectable Woman" by Kate Chopin

"A Respectable Woman" by Kate Chopin (6 pages, 1894, read  via Dailylit.com)

About two weeks ago I decided I needed to overcome my aversion to short stories.   I know why I am not really into the form (I like to move into the world of the novels I read and I cannot do this in short stories or so I thought) but as I read some wonderful stories by classic writers like Melville and Gogol as well as contemporary writers like Jhumpa Lahiri  I have decided I can find great short stories to read.   As an added benefit, a short story gives you the chance to sort of "try a writer out" to see if you like their style and subject matter.   

I have seen a number of blog posts in the last year on Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1889).   Everyone seems to really like her and she is often called a writer ahead of her time and place  (1850 to 1904-from Louisiana).  "A Respectable Woman" is very short, six pages.   It is told from the point of view of a seemingly happily married woman living on a plantation in rural Louisiana in the 1890s.   In just six pages Chopin is able to really portray the atmosphere of the plantation (you can see well the giant 100 year old live oak trees draped in Spanish moss and you can taste the mint julips).   The plot line is simple.   The narrator's husband invites a friend to visit, one of his best friends from prior to their marriage.   The wife has never met him before but the husband tells her she will really enjoy his visit and his personality.   At first the wife is disappointed in the man and finds him dull.   Then she sits outside on a bench under one of the oak trees with him.    She is shocked to feel drawn to the visitor:

Mrs. Baroda was greatly tempted that night to tell her husband--who was also her friend--of this folly that had seized her. But she did not yield to the temptation. Beside being a respectable woman she was a very sensible one; and she knew there are some battles in life which a human being must fight alone.

I love the style of this passage.   I loved the reference in passing to the fact that her husband was also her friend.    There is a lot of insight and wisdom in these three  simple lines.

I can now, thanks to this really beautiful short story, place The Awakening on my TBR list.   In most editions of that work there are also included a few short stories.

Mel u