Journal for Chopin (pt.3)

Francesca Cricchio
Journal for Chopin
English 48 B
March 4, 2011

“Madame Charleville knew all about the strongest motives of human existence: greed, power, lust, and maternal love. But the greatest lesson, one her great-granddaughter repeated so tellingly in her later stories, was that a woman had to be independent.” (From Emily Toth reading)

“Since Chopin's works contain clear elements of romanticism, transcendentalism, realism, naturalism, existentialism, and feminism, her stories can help students understand these literary modes and the directions in which American literature has developed during the last century and a half. Chopin's style offers opportunities to point out the virtues of conciseness; strong, clear imagery; symbolism; understatement; humor; and irony.” (Bio of Chopin from Georgetown.edu)

Both biographies, “Unveiling Kate Chopin” and “Kate Chopin as Feminist” reveal the life of legendary writer Chopin, and give descriptive detail about Kate’s childhood and later years. In “Unveiling Kate Chopin” Toth describes Chopin’s childhood years and discusses some of the events that helped influence and shape her stories. Toth also talks about Chopin’s ancestry of strong, independent women. After the tragic death of her father, Chopin is brought home by her mother and then on raised by her family of women. In “Kate Chopin as Feminist”, Marquand writes a comparative essay about Chopin’s story “Her Letters” and how it is influenced by French author, Guy de Maupassant.

I found Toth’s biography of Chopin to be very interesting and after reading her story I found several similarities between Chopin’s personal life and the character Edna in The Awakening. For starters, I thought it was clever how Chopin’s story was circled around a woman finding independence in herself, and rejecting societies expectations of woman of that time. Much like Kate’s mother (Eliza), Edna becomes further apart from her husband because he leaves town for business (the only contrast is Eliza’s husband dies), and from this separation both women gain a strong sense of self-respect and individualism. I also thought it was very interesting how Chopin incorporated a “mammy” (slave/nanny) much like the one she had when she was growing up into the Awakening. Chopin almost saw her “mammy” as a second mother, and the closeness between the two resonates in to The Awakening. Edna’s two children are almost always with the nanny, and not their actual mother, and I think that Chopin was really saying something about her home life when creating that character. Finally, I thought it was interesting how Chopin incorporated her love and talent for music into her story. Toth states that Chopin was very fond of music, and by adolescence she could play “any song by ear”. This love for music is clearly evident in The Awakening when Edna has a small revelation during Madame Reisz’s piano performance.
It is interesting how much you can discover about a story when reading about the author. The slightest things that almost go by notice can actually mean a lot more when you look at a story through the eyes of the author.