The Works of Kate Chopin essays

The Works of Kate Chopin essays Women writers in the late 19th century struggled with their voices, their characters, and their writing, just as all writers do. However, many also had to struggle to be taken seriously by predominately male publishers, and such was the case with Kate Chopin. Throughout her career, "Chopin wrote three novels, eighty-five short stories, twelve essays, twenty-five poems, and one play, although she never earned enough money to support herself from her writing" (Nelson, 1995 p. 234). The key here is "support herself." It is still quite difficult to support oneself from fiction writing, and Chopin encountered this throughout her career. Quite simply, short stories sold more quickly than novels, and took less time to write, so Chopin could create more marketable works in a shorter amount of time, and see the monetary results much sooner than she would from a novel. As one writer noted, "The market for conversion and happily-ever-after stories for Christmas and Easter was immense. It was also one of the best sources of income and recognition for professional writers" (Toth, 1999 p. 125). Indeed, Chopin consistently made more money from her short stories than her novels. She received only $102 as royalties for "The Awakening," but at the same time was earning as much as $50 for only one short story (Toth, 1999 p. 229). Historian Toth continues, "Magazine editors in the 1890s, all of them white, liked stories of unequal relationships between blacks and whites in which, for instance, the black character sacrifices for his or her 'white folks'" (Toth, 1999 p. 169). Fiction was exceedingly popular in women's magazines of the day, and as more magazines sought to capitalize on the women's market, more fiction was needed to fill their pages, and so the opportunities for short story writers were quite good. Good Housekeeping was quite consistent with other women's magazines of the ...