Female writers in the late 1800's

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant facts and figures relating to the analysis of female writers in the late 1800's. In this paper, we will analyze “Story of An Hour” and “Desiree's Baby” by Kate Chopin in relation to the author's personal interest in underappreciated women in the late 1800's (Kaur, pp. 2-12). We will also examine the work of Maria Edgeworth and find out the essence of liberty in her writing.

Discussion & Analysis

The author is interested to examine the work of Kate Chopin and Maria Edgeworth because of the fact that both of these female authors have written on the concepts of feminism that were criticized by most of the analyst of that era. These two authors referred as contemporary writers, because of their courage and freedom to write on feminism issues that were mostly unappreciated. In this section, we will examine the work of Kate Chopin and Maria Edgeworth and also present the criticism made on their work.

Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin is one of the most revered of American writers. Although she was born in St. Louis, Missouri, she is associated with the South and is claimed as a southern writer because of her writing. She married her husband, Oscar Chopin, when she was 19 years old. Her husband died in 1882 of what was then called swamp fever, and at that time she returned to her home in St. Louis, Missouri, with her six children from her marriage.

Unlike many writers, Chopin did not begin to write until well into her adulthood. Chopin published her first poem in 1889. Much of her writing concerns the lives of women and her novels and short stories were often an implicit critique of the limitations placed on women's lives by the traditional roles imposed upon them. Much of her writing has as its central locale Louisiana and the South. Eventually, doubting her abilities, Chopin stopped writing altogether, but during her 10 years or so as a creative writer, Chopin produced some classic works of American fiction, including her novel, The Awakening (1899), and many short stories.

Given her tendencies toward Romantic methods of composition—selecting subjects that presented themselves unbidden and distrusting her abilities to improve works through revision—Kate Chopin's accomplishments as a writer of realistic fiction are noteworthy. The works on which her reputation rest were produced during a span of about a dozen years near the end of her foreshortened life and display a remarkably high (if not absolutely consistent) level of artistry. After publishing her first novel, At Fault (1890), at her own expense and having a second novel rejected by publishers, Chopin gained a national audience with the publication of short stories in large-circulation periodicals such as Youth's Companion and Vogue (Bloom, pp. 5-7).

The peak of Chopin's critical success among her contemporaries came with the publication of two volumes of short stories: Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). With their Louisiana ...