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    At Fault
    At Fault
    At Fault
    Ebook220 pages2 hours

    At Fault

    By Kate Chopin

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American novelist and short story writer who is being increasingly recognized as a forerunner to the feminist authors of the twentieth century. Chopin wrote short stories which were published in such magazines as "Atlantic Monthly", "Vogue", and "The Century Magazine", as well as two novels. Her stories were typically set in Louisiana, particularly New Orleans, and reflected her experiences there during her marriage when her husband allowed her to act unconventionally, smoking and going about unescorted. In her early novel, "At Fault", Chopin is just starting to delve into the psychology of her characters – a skill that she would hone and garner praise for later. It is an intensely focused story about propriety, love, the realities of marriage, and recovery from the Civil War. Chopin's literary career was sparked by the publication of "At Fault", and readers have consistently enjoyed her rich regional descriptions and depictions of fiercely independent women.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateFeb 1, 2012
    ISBN9781420944792
    At Fault
    Author

    Kate Chopin

    Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904), was an American writer of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. Chopin is best known for her novel The Awakening, and for her short story collections, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Of French and Irish descent, her work depicted the various ethnic groups of Louisiana, especially of Creoles, with sensitivity and wit, and featured vivid descriptions of the natural environment there. After her husband died in 1882 and left her $42,000 in debt, Chopin took up writing to support her family of six children. Though popular, her serious literary qualities were overlooked in her day, and she is now seen as an important early American feminist writer.

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    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      From the back cover:“Widowed at thirty-two, beautiful, resourceful Therese Lafirme is left alone to run her Louisiana plantation. When Therese falls in love with David Hosmer, a divorced businessman, her strong moral and religious convictions make it impossible for her to accept his marriage proposal. Her determined rejection sets the two on a tumultuous path that involves Hosmer’s troubled former wife, Fanny.”This was Chopin’s first novel, written eight years after she herself was widowed at 32 on a Louisiana plantation (though unlike Therese, Chopin had six kids at the time). Chopin then had a romance with a married man before abruptly moving back to St. Louis a couple of years later.The idea of divorce in the 19th century was highly distasteful, and particularly so to conservative, Catholic, southern communities. In her personal life as well as in her writing, Chopin thus wrestles with the question of an individual’s happiness in light of social pressures and the ethics of the times, like Edith Wharton would shortly afterwards. The conclusions she draws are clear: to subvert one’s happiness for the sake of an arbitrary code of righteousness is a mistake.As for the writing itself, ‘At Fault’ is rough around the edges; dramatic events seem a little forced and the ending is too clean. The treatment of African-American characters is also tough to take, not because of outright violence, but because of the casual racism evident in how they’re depicted, which is lazy and unintelligent – and this isn’t just from the characters in the novel; Chopin herself apparently had these prejudices. However, I took this as one of the truths of the novel, in effectively transporting me back to a bayou plantation and St. Louis in the 1880’s. Chopin’s characters are interesting, from the Creoles to the society ladies who she satirizes. A recurring theme is the difficulty of carrying on through change or after loss, which I suppose has a bigger implication in the Reconstruction South, but it’s highly personalized here. This is a first novel and must be forgiven a few sins, and if you want the more polished Chopin head directly her classic, ‘The Awakening’, but I found ‘At Fault’ interesting and enjoyable.Just this quote, on decisions in life:“She tried to convince herself that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from selfishness – from the pain that her own heart suffered in the knowledge of Hosmer’s unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to ask herself only ‘was I right?’ and it was by the answer to that question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and fainted away.”

    Book preview

    At Fault - Kate Chopin

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