A Writer Ahead of Her Time

Kate Chopin was a strong, independent woman. Her strength and independence was surely a result of her upbringing, but being born in the mid-eighteen hundreds, this was not a popular way for a woman to be. As she became a writer, her experiences throughout her childhood and her early adulthood made for some very controversial themes and ideas in her writings. As evidenced by her short story “The Story of An Hour”, Kate Chopin was obviously ahead of her time in that she often wrote of such controversial themes as a woman’s desire for freedom and independence. To understand the controversy of her writings, it is important to understand her upbringing and the world in which she lived.
Chopin was surrounded by strong women and very few men during her childhood. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to a family with money and social class. At the early age of five she was sent to a Catholic boarding school, Sacred Heart, where she was taught by nuns who believed in creat...