Chopin reflected the Creole heritage of the area in her characters.

She set At Fault and portions of The Awakening in New Orleans, where Chopin spent many years as a young wife and mother. CHOPIN SET MANY OF HER STORIES IN LOUISIANA, INCLUDING THE AWAKENING. Here was a man who had escaped from tradition and authority, who had entered into himself and looked out upon life through his own being and with his own eyes, and who, in a direct and simple way, told us what he saw.' 3. Here was life, not fiction for where were the plots, the old-fashioned mechanism and stage-trapping that in a vague, unthinkable way I had fancied were essential to the art of story-making. 'I read his stories and marveled at them.

Of Maupassant's influence on her work, Chopin said: One of his most famous stories, ' Boule de Suif,' follows the journey of a prostitute during the Franco-Prussian War. The French short story writer is known for his masterpieces of realism. CHOPIN WAS INSPIRED BY THE WRITING OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT. The Awakening, her second novel, was published on April 22, 1899. Her next two books, both short story collections, were Bayou Folk (published in 1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). From there, Chopin began writing for well-known magazines, and published more than 100 short stories and essays in Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The Century Magazine, and The Youth's Companion. Her first novel At Fault, privately published in 1890, centered on a Creole widow named Thérèse Lafirme, who unexpectedly finds love with a dashing divorcé. This premise elicited widespread scorn when the book was published in 1899-and its author never could have predicted its rocky road to critical acclaim. Set in the late 19th century, its story follows Edna Pontellier, a wife and mother whose flirtation with a young bachelor leads her to desire more from life. Kate Chopin's groundbreaking novel The Awakening is revered for its realism and regularly included in academic reading lists.

The awakening novel by kate chopin