I think Kate Chopin is a very good writer. She introduced things that not many authors of her time said. One example was how she ended the stories. They ended with bad things happening. For example in the end of "The Storm" the two people get away with having an affair. The husband and wife don't find out. Also in "Desiree's Baby" the woman kills herself and the baby. So both those stories have not good endings as far as morals and happiness go. Kate Chopin does another thing that not many authors of her time did. In the storm she goes into great detail of a seduction scene. For example, "The contact of her warm, palpitating body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms, had aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh." I couldn't believe the detail she went into because I never have read something like that in a book before. You could picture what was going on. I thought it was very sad in the story "Desiree's Baby" that the husband left the wife because of the skin color of the baby. It's very upsetting that race had such an effect on people. Everybody should be equal no matter what color skin a person has. I'm glad times have changed now and everybody is viewed as equals. This story also reminded me of the story Thomas Jefferson wrote because it was all about slavery and how the blacks were treated unfairly. "The Storm" was like that because the wife was thrown away because the father blamed her for the baby's color. Meanwhile the father is black too and he didn't even look at his own self. He just assumes it's the wife that made the baby black because she's a woman and they were viewed as less then men.
I also found it interesting to learn about the class status that was in the stories. In "The Storm" the creoles were viewed as the wealthier group and they were the descendants of the Spanish people. The cajuns were lower than the creoles and were the peasants and farmers. It was interesting to see in the story how no matter what the classes, the creole went with the cajun. It was because they had a special connection with each other. I like how they defied the rules and, in the end, went with each other. Also they didn't get caught. They got away scot free and were very lucky that their husband and wife didn't find out.
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Kate Chopin's writings are different from what we have read so far in class. She does include important ideals about the South, such as the Creoles and Cadians, as well as slavery, but she tends to focus on more intimate parts of life. You mentioned how the seduction scene has great detail. This type of writing was unheard of at the time.
I think Chopin's family life greatly influenced her writings. Her father died when she was young, so she was ultimately raised in a home full of women. Later on, her husband died, leaving her to raise the children, run his general store, and look over the plantation.
Kate's writings almost seem to be her outlet from the duties that were typically done by men. Her writings allow her to be feminine.
I love to entertain the idea that she wrote these stories because she was trying to make the women's roles as equal as the men's in a time when the men where seen as the stronger person. I see that she was trying to show that not social or gender roles can stop these women from being independant and doing their own thing. Even though it didn't seem like Desiree had a mind of her own, she did take it upon herself to end her suffering and that shame to her family by disappearing into the bayou with the baby. And in "At the 'Cadian Ball," Calixta is a short temper strong willed woman who is so independant that she attracted a man from another social rank to want her and be with her. I think that Chopin was really working at having these people, these women, show different side of their societies so that they could show the truth of how they were.
You said that in that you liked how in the end of "After the Storm" Alcee and Calixta defied the restrictions that were placed on their social classes and they were able to be together. I don't agree that this was a form of rebel. Alcee and Calixta both had feelings for each other before they married people they had no feelings for. Both individuals married others who were socially appropriate. It was not until 5 years later that they finally were able to be together. Before he was married, Alcee was ashamed to be seen with Calixta, both times in "At the Cadian Ball" and then in "After the Storm" that they were together it was a secret. Just like white men kept the children they had with black women a secret so were affairs amongst different classes. If they had been going against society they would not have married who they did and they would have been together.
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