Kate Chopin's Bigarphy Affects Her

What makes an author write the way they write? What makes that writer’s tone of certain characters situation approving and some condemning? What makes the novelist write about the topic that they do? Quite simple, their memoir causes this. Kate Chopin’s background shapes what she writes with the framework of family. Neal Wyatt conveys this through his writing of the biography of Kate Chopin. He conveys this through the rhetorical strategy of diction. “…these unhappy incidents combined to create a strong skepticism of religion in Chopin.” (Paragraph 5). This conveyed how death really impacted her life. This would explain the death that ends the story of some of her fictions. Since her happiness ended with death her stories have to end with death. It also conveys how it makes the woman question what she really is, because back in that time religion was the foundation of self knowledge. If one was to go about questioning one’s religion, one practically was questioning who they really were. This explains why the women would be confused about their feelings or at least confuses the audience, so that they can understand the feelings of Chopin. The incidents also convey why the people die a certain way in Chopin’s stories. Her family, well those who were close to her, died on weird days or in weird ways. One of Kate’s stories conveys how a character died the way her father did. This also could convey the time period or the mindset she had while writing the tale, because evidently she was thinking of her father. Wyatt does not only express that Chopin’s upbringing is the result to her writing through death he also does this through her traits.
Neal Wyatt uses rhetorical devices such as diction to convey that Chopin’s experiences structures her work. “By all accounts he adored his wife, admired her independence and intelligence, and allowed her unheard of freedom.” (Paragraph 6). This conveys why her views of feminism was the way it was. Since she was free to do as she pleased and was not shunned for her intelligence, she could not imagine the life that most women had found horrid at that time. She was allowed this by her husband and not only did he allow it he loved her for it. Therefore, it is reasonable why she has her female characters feel some hostility toward the husbands who did not allow it and kept them in check at all times. Still, she had the women have some love for their husbands; this conveys how she felt that the women should still be grateful that the men were willing to take care of them. How along with the freedom to express their intelligence, they must be able to work independently to provide for themselves. Later, Chopin conveys that she is able to do that but is still criticized for her feminist views. Neal also conveys why Chopin made the women feel they needed freedom. She wanted the women to want the freedom so they can be strong enough to one day become the independent women that she was at the time of her writing the stories. She did not want the women to be full of talk but to be able to stand on their own two feet once they did get this freedom. This also explains the tone of her toward the characters. Why she was sympathetic over the women who did not have the freedom. She put herself in the situation of not being loved by her husband for being her. How she would have had to be submissive if he did not love her enough to allow her to be herself. But she does not hate the male husband characters that are completely controlling over the women. Yes, she condemns them but she does not hate them. She looks down on them for being so weak either to society’s trend or to their mindset. She also sympathized with them because she later was censured for the novels she came out with. She looked at the man as weak characters who should have been somewhat recognized for not having the women condemned and having to deal with the silence she did, but also looked down on them still for not letting them explore their mind. Neal Wyatt conveyed that Kate Chopin’s experiences built the foundation for her fiction.