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by: Emily Toth
List Price: $20.00Amazon.com's Price: $18.00 You Save: $2.00 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.4
EAN: 9781578061020
ISBN: 1578061024
Label: University Press of Mississippi
Manufacturer: University Press of Mississippi
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 232
Publication Date: March 01, 1999
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Sales Rank: 840982
Studio: University Press of Mississippi
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Product Description:
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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - unwarranted conclusions
I hope this is a good biography of Kate Chopin, an author whose work I admire. However, if you read this book, I suggest you be very careful of trusting any conclusions the author reaches based on anything less than complete evidence.
Emily Toth makes many assumptions and interpretations which are shaky at best. For example:
Bud Aiken is a representation of Albert Sampite because they share an initial (A). That's weak at best.
Alcee Arobin is a representation ... Read More
Rating:  - The Awakening: the rest of the story
Emily Toth wrote Unveiling Kate Chopin after the remarkable recent discovery of Chopin's diaries and manuscripts. This intimate perspective paints a whole new picture of her life and work. Throughout this biography, Toth draws parallels between actual experiences from Chopin's life to characters and incidents in her writing. Suddenly, her stories have new depth of meaning. Toth begins her saga when sixteen-year-old Eliza Faris, a genuine Creole, married thirty-nine-year-old Thomas O'Flaherty, ... Read More
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