Kate Chopin is a brilliant writer. Her writing career is during the late 1800's. She lives in a time where women are sexually suppressed and their opinions are not valued. Her writing holds more in common with our time than the time just after the Civil War. Although her life was full of death, she still lived as happy a life as she could by writing in such a bold and daring way.
             Kate Chopin was born as Catherine O'Flaherty. She was born July 12, 1850. She is the daughter of Thomas and Eliza O'Flaherty.
             Kate's father, Thomas O'Flaherty, was born in Ireland in 1805. He came to the United States in 1823. In 1825 he became a merchant in St. Louis. In 1855 he died suddenly in a train wreck when she was only four. His sudden death pushed all his family into new relationships with each other and the world.
             Thomas' first wife, Catherine de Reilhe, married Thomas in 1839. She was a French-Creole girl, who died after giving birth to their son, George. In 1844, Thomas married Eliza Faris. They had three children together: Jane, who died at childbirth; Thomas Jr.; and Catherine, who we know as Kate Chopin. After the father's death, Eliza had to cope with being a widow.
             Kate's childhood consisted of a widowed mother, and a widowed great-grandmother. As a child, Kate experienced many deaths. She became emotionally close to her half brother George O'Flaherty. George was a Confederate solider during the Civil War and died from typhoid fever after being released from prison in 1862. After her father and brother's death, Kate seemed to have collapsed. She became faintly ill, and it took her two to three years to recover the traumatizing events of her childhood. These events changed her permanently which made her very wary.
             Kate's great-grandmother, Madame Charleville, taught her French. In fact, that was the only thing she would speak around Kate. Madame ...