Kate Chopin, The Locket

When tonight’s author, Kate Chopin (1850-1904), was fifteen years old and living in St. Louis, Missouri, she snatched from the family’s front porch a flag put up by the victorious Union Army. She was promptly arrested and earned herself the affectionate label of the “Littlest Rebel in St. Louis.” When she was married, she and her husband moved to Louisiana, where she began her career as a writer. She was a well-regarded author in her own lifetime but fell into obscurity for many years, dismissed as a “regional writer.” She was rediscovered and seriously reconsidered by the feminist movement of the 1960s, which brought attention to the work of women who had been excluded from the literary canon by its male creators. Today, her work seems assured of its proper place in the canon of American literature. Our story tonight is called “The Locket.”