A Respectable Woman

Kate Chopin (née O’ Flannery) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 8, 1850. Her father was an Irishman, and her mother was from a French family. After her father died in an accident when she was five years old, Chopin was raised by a household of widowed women: her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was formally educated by nuns at Sacred Heart Academy, an academically sound Catholic school.

Chopin was nurtured by intelligent women who lived independently during an era of great restriction on women’s choices and their ability to direct their own lives. In addition to shaping the author’s early development, these female figures may have inspired her complex female characters, many of whom struggle for autonomy and agency amid Victorian constructs of womanhood, which were defined primarily through marriage and maternity. This conflict between external compliance and internal rebellion can be observed in some of Chopin’s best-known characters, such as Mrs. Baroda in “A Respectable Woman,” Edna Pontellier in The Awakening, and Louise Mallard in “The Story of the Hour.”

Chopin’s young adulthood was also shaped by the US Civil War (1861-1865). While St. Louis was a blend of both Union and Confederate supporters, Chopin’s family was pro-Confederate.