Kate Chopin was an incredibly talented writer. Kate wrote about real feelings and real issues. Few of the topics that she wrote about were spoken of. Kate Chopin became one of the best known and most controversial writers of the 19th century. She stood up for women, their rights and other real issues, no matter what the cost was to her reputation. Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty, on February 8, 1851, in St. Louis Missouri. She was raised by women for most of her childhood. Kate's family included her widowed mother, her widowed grandmother and her widowed great-grandmother. Later on in life, Kate grew up and married a man named Oscar Chopin. She had children and was widowed by her husband who died of malaria. It was not until the death of her husband, that she moved back to her birthplace of St. Louis, and began to write. By the time she had started to write, Kate had already experienced many maturing life situations. Kate Chopin wrote about real life and real life situations. Kate foreshadowed future events in her writings.
             Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," written in 1894, is a story of a woman who through the reported death of her husband, experienced true freedom. Both tragic and ironic, the story deals with the boundaries imposed on women by society in the nineteenth century. Kate Chopin, like the character in her story, had first-hand experience with the male-dominated society of that time and had experienced the death of her husband at a young age (Academic Library). Louise Mallard and Kate Chopin's lives were very similar. Louise's life began once she came to the realization that she could live for herself. During this "hour" she felt true joy and freedom, but her life ended abruptly as her husband walked through the door. Like Mrs. Mallard, Chopin's writing career began once her husband died. She wrote a few collections of short stories, but when she began expressing her feminist views, the critics wa...