...ENG 102 Writing Project 1 3 Oct. 2012 My Mother’s Baby In “Désirée’s Baby,” by Kate Chopin, the main character, Désirée, is shunned from her home because her baby has colored skin. Although I can’t directly relate, my mom can. Years ago, my mom had a baby with colored skin, and my grandfather did not approve, much like Armand in the story. For Armand and Désirée, it was like love at first sight, and they marry. Soon they expand their family with the birth of a baby boy. Désirée’s world is perfect until Armand starts acting strange. She has no idea what could have caused this sudden change. When Désirée confronts him about it, he indirectly tells her that it is because their baby’s skin is not pure white. He can’t accept that their baby’s skin doesn’t match his, and he asks Désirée to take the baby and leave. My grandfather is very old-fashioned. He was raised on a farm in Missouri long before the civil rights movement. His grandfather lived with him, and they were very close. His grandfather’s family had owned slaves, and my grandfather grew up believing that the white race is superior. So, when my mom married a Hispanic man in 1986, my grandfather started acting similar to Armand in “Désirée’s Baby.” In the story, Chopin writes about Désirée, “A strange, an awful change in her husband’s manner, which she dared not ask him to explain,” (Chopin 191). My mom can relate to Désirée because her own father was doing the same to her. ...
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...Kate Chopin: Desiree’s Baby Kate Chopin, born Katherine O’Flaherty was an American writer who is best known for her major work The Awakening which was published in 1899. Chopin was born in St. Louis to her father an Irish immigrant, and her mother whom was of French descent. Although Chopin’s father died in a train wreck when she was four years old, she grew up surrounded by “loving, intelligent, and independent women” (Baym and Levine 420). At the young age of nineteen, Kate married Oscar Chopin and moved to New Orleans Louisiana. Less than a decade later, Oscar's cotton business failed and they moved to his family's plantation in the Natchitoches Parish of northwestern Louisiana, where Oscar “opened a general store and managed a family cotton plantation” (Baym and Levine 420). When Oscar passed away in 1882, the widowed Kate was left to raise her six young children on her own. Chopin chose to contribute to the local market and “fashioned a literary career out of her experience of the Creole and Cajun cultures she had come to know” (Baym and Levine 420). Chopin’s stories of Louisiana rural life earned her national recognition as a writer of local color fiction. In Desiree’s baby, Chopin’s ability to foreshadow and build up suspense allows the reader to engage in the doubtfulness and uncertainty which keeps the reader unaware. Desiree’s Baby is a story of love, mystery, and suspense. Published in 1893, Desiree’s Baby, was centered on the controversial subject of...
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...Violence, School Vouchers, Teaching, Technology and Education, Test and Testing, Writing English Composition Essays - Analitical, Autobiographical, Argument, Cause/Effect, Classification, Compare/Contrast, Comparison, Conversation, Creative+Writing, Critical, Deductive, Definition, Descriptive, Description, Dialog, Division, Exploratory, Expository, Informative, Interview, Inquiry, Journalistic, Narration, Observation. Personal Narrative, Place, Profile, Process, Proposal English Literature and Literary Analysis - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A & P, Antigone, Apocalypse Now, Araby, The Awakening, Barn Burning, Beowulf, Beloved, Bible, Birthmark, Blade Runner, The Bluest Eye, Candide, Canterbury Tales, Catcher in the Rye, Cathedral, Chrysanthemums, A Clockwork Orange, The Color Purple, Comparing Literary Works, Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, Death in Venice, Desiree's Baby, A Doll's House, Dr. Faustus, Epic of Gilgamesh, Everyday Use, A Farewell to Arms, Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Glass Menagerie, Gulliver's Travels, The Handmaid's Tale, Heart of Darkness, The Iliad, Invisible Man, Jane Eyre, The Joy Luck Club, The Lottery, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Metamorphosis, My Antonia, My Papa's Waltz, Neuromancer, The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, On the Road, Oresteia, Paradise Lost, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Pride and Prejudice, A Raisin in the Sun, A Rose for Emily, The Scarlet...
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...Kate Chopin Catherine (Kate) O'Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 8, 1850, the second child of Thomas O'Flaherty of County Galway, Ireland, and Eliza Faris of St. Louis. Kate's family on her mother's side was of French extraction, and Kate grew up speaking both French and English. She was bilingual and bicultural--feeling at home in different communities with quite different values--and the influence of French life and literature on her thinking is noticeable throughout her fiction. From 1855 to 1868 Kate attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, with one year at the Academy of the Visitation. As a girl, she was mentored by woman--by her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother, as well as by the Sacred Heart nuns. Kate formed deep bonds with her family members, with the sisters who taught her at school, and with her life-long friend Kitty Garasché. Much of the fiction Kate wrote as an adult draws on the nurturing she received from women as she was growing up. Her early life had a great deal of trauma. In 1855, her father was killed in a railroad accident. In 1863 her beloved French-speaking great grandmother died. Kate spent the Civil War in St. Louis, a city where residents supported both the Union and the Confederacy and where her family had slaves in the house. Her half brother enlisted in the Confederate army, was captured by Union forces, and died of typhoid fever. From 1867 to 1870 Kate kept a commonplace book in which she recorded...
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...continued to work as a journalist. Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904), was an American author of short stories and novels. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century. From 1892 to 1895, she wrote short stories for both children and adults which were published in such magazines as Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The Century Magazine, and The Youth's Companion. Her major works were two short story collections, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her important short stories included "Desiree's Baby", a tale of miscegenation in antebellum Louisiana (published in 1893),"The Story of an Hour" (1894),[2] and "The Storm "(1898). "The Storm" is a sequel to "The 'Cadian Ball," which appeared in her first collection of short stories, Bayou Folk. Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault(1890) and The Awakening (1899), which are set in New Orleans and Grand Isle, respectively. The people in her stories are usually inhabitants of Louisiana. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north central Louisiana. Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. In...
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...Again, thus reflecting on her life there. Reviewers have called this book, pleasant and charming, as stated in the New York Times and Atlantic. The book is set in the Cane River country of Louisiana where Chopin had previously lived for several years. In these stories, her characters challenge the limits of their socioeconomic station and rebel against the social expectations of their time period. The best known story in Bayou Folk, “Desiree’s Baby,” which was previously published in Vogue. Desiree, a lovely young woman who grew up with foster parents, marries a successful plantation owner, Armand Aubigny. But, when their newborn child is born exhibiting African American skin coloring, Aubigny claims Desiree’s unknown parentage is to blame, but as Desiree wonders away from the plantation the reader learns that her husband’s racial identity is also ambiguous. Another very well known story in this collection, “At the Cadian ball,” features the dashing and beautiful, Alcee Laballiere, Chopin’s fictional portrayal of her very own lover, Albert...
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...a young girl at the time, the incident might have resulted in serious consequences, but since she was, her act became famous as local legend. While attending a Catholic high school, Kate studied both French and English literature and became an accomplished pianist. She attended numerous social events and became very popular in St. Louis high society. She also became interested in the movement for women's suffrage although she never became very politically active. When she was nineteen, she married Oscar Chopin, a twenty-five-year-old French-Creole businessman. The couple moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, and later moved to Cloutierville in north central Louisiana. Kate and Oscar were very happy together and, like the Pontelliers in The Awakening, soon became immersed in aristocratic Louisiana society. A gentle man, Oscar tolerated Kate's...
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...is considered as a forerunner of feminist author. Unlike many of the feminist writers of her time who were mainly interested in improving the social conditions of women, she looked for an understanding of personal freedom. She put much concentration on women’s lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own personality. Her stories were not accepted by the public of that period. Through her stories Kate wrote her own autobiography and documented her surroundings. She is the author of such works as “The Awakening”, “A Night in Arcadie”, “Désirée’s Baby”, “At Fault” and “The story of an Hour”. The action of the “The story of an Hour” takes place in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, in the middle of 19 century. In a bourgeois family. I’d like to remark that at that time the situation was different from the current state of things in modern world. Women were supposed to obey their husbands, devoting themselves fully to raising a baby and taking care of their house. No time for their personal needs, hobbies, interests and work. Women lived all their lives in the shadow of their husbands. “The story of an Hour” begins with sad news. Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards try to inform her husband’s death. During the next hour she experiences discrepant feelings. Eventually something comes to her and she realizes the fact that now she is free, she becomes a personality. But sudden appearance of her husband ruins her dreams and causes...
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...The Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin A PENN STATE ELECTRONIC CLASSICS SERIES PUBLICATION The Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document File is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. The Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 182021291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 2008 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty on February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole background. She is now considered to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century. —Courtesy Wikipedia.org Contents ...
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..."The Story of An Hour" - Câu chuyện của một giờ Admin on Wed Oct 06, 2010 1:51 am Câu chuyện của một giờ Biết bà vợ ông Mallard bị bịnh tim mọi người rất cẩn thận, khéo léo khi báo tin cái chết của chồng nàng. Ngườibáo tin là Josephine, chị của nàng, bằng những câu đứt quảng đầy ngụ ýnửa bộc lộ, nửa che dấu. Richards, bạn của người chồng, cũng có mặt, kềbên. Richards nghe tin này lúc ông ta đang ở trong văn phòng của một tờbáo vừa đúng lúc tờ báo này nhận được tin về tai họa xảy ra trên đườngxe lửa, và tên Brently Mallard đứng đầu danh sách “người chết.” Ông ấycẩn thận chờ cái điện tín thứ hai để biết chắc chắn đó là sự thật, vàcẩn thận ngăn ngừa không cho những người kém tế nhị mang tin buồn đếncho gia đình này. Nàng không nghe câu chuyện giống như nhữngngười đàn bà khác nghe cùng câu chuyện, bằng cái tê điếng sững sờ vàkhông chấp nhận tầm quan trọng của sự việc. Nàng khóc òa ngay lập tức,rồi thình lình, ngã nhào buông thả bất kể vào trong vòng tay chị mình.Khi cơn bão tang thương nguôi dần, nàng bỏ vào phòng một mình. Nhấtđịnh không cho ai đi theo. Đối diện cửa sổ là một cái ghế bànhkhá rộng và đầy tiện nghi. Nàng ngồi lún sâu vào ghế, như bị đè bẹp bởicơn kiệt sức đã ám ảnh cơ thể và dường như vói tận vào linh hồn củanàng. Nàng có thể nhìn thấy trong quảng sân rộng trước nhà lànhững ngọn cây đang run rẩy với cuộc sống mới của mùa xuân. Mưa nhẹ nhưhơi thở thật ngon lành trong không gian. Dưới đường phố, người bán rongđang rao hàng. Những nốt của một bản nhạc người nào...
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