By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Désirée’s Baby’, originally known by the longer title ‘The Father of Désirée’s Baby’, is an 1893 short story by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-94). It is among Chopin’s most widely studied stories, partly because it deals with the subject of race as well as gender. The story tells of a woman who marries a plantation-owner; when she gives birth to their child, she is shocked to discover the baby is mixed-race.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The novels and short stories of the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904) are important precursors to twentieth-century modernism, and can be viewed as forerunners to the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and other high modernists.
Where other nineteenth-century writers tended to privilege plot over character, and action over introspection, Chopin focused on interiority and the inner lives of her female protagonists.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Regret’ is a short story by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904). Chopin wrote ‘Regret’ in September 1894 and it originally appeared in Century magazine the following year, before being reprinted in her 1897 collection A Night in Acadie. This collection met with some hostile reviews, with one critic objecting to the ‘unnecessary coarseness’ of some of the subject-matter.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘A Pair of Silk Stockings’ is a short story by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904), written in 1896 and published in Vogue the following year. The story is about a married woman who comes into possession of fifteen dollars and ends up treating herself to new clothes, a meal in a restaurant, and a theatre show, when she had originally planned to spend the money on new clothes for her children.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘A Respectable Woman’ is a short story by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904). Chopin wrote ‘A Respectable Woman’ in 1894 and it originally appeared in Vogue magazine that year, before being reprinted in her 1897 collection A Night in Acadie. This collection met with some hostile reviews, with one critic objecting to the ‘unnecessary coarseness’ of some of the subject-matter.