Kate Chopin, was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on Feburary8,1851, of a prosperous Irish-born merchant father and an aristocratic Creole mother. She studied piano, wrote poetry, and read Dickens, Austen, Goethe, de Stael, and the Brontes. Despite her free spirit--she was once nicknamed the "littlest rebel" for yanking down a Union flag--Kate grew to be a leading social belle, admired for her wit and beauty.

In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin. Matrimony did not quell her independence; she dressed unconventionally, took long unchaperoned walks, and smoked cigarettes. In their twelve years of married life, she bore six children, and upon Oscar's sudden death in 1882 she took over the management of the Chopin family plantation in Natchitoches, Louisana. She turned seriously to writing shortly thereafter, publishing stories in Vogue and Atlantic Monthly. She wrote a novel, At Fault(1890), Bayou Folk, a collection of stories(1894), A Night in Acadie, a second collection (1897), and her masterpiece The Awakening(1899), which aroused a national scandal for its "indecency." Banned by libraries, it even prevented her admission into the St. Louis Fine Arts Club--even though Kate Chopin was famous for her literary salon, which attracted distinguished artists and writers from all over the country.

Always sensitive to criticism, Chopin was devastated by the furor that surrounded the publication of The Awakening, and its harsh reception ultimately caused her to stop writing. When she died in 1904, she had been denied the recognition she desperately wanted and richly deserved.

《萬有文庫(第一輯外國)--覺醒》和作者的其他作品 一樣，在者在描繪美國南方路易西安那州的剋裏歐人（Creole）的人和事，剋裏歐人為法國移民後裔，都為貴族。艾德娜原本置身於法國式的上流社會中，生活的目的隻有相夫教子、宴款賓客。在這樣的一個社會裏，女人的身份是因男人而定位；女人沒有自我，而隻是某人的女兒、姊妹、妻子、母親，或情婦。這年夏天，艾德娜全傢到新奧爾良南方約五十英裏外的格藍島度假，邂逅勞伯特，終於燃起自我遙意識，不願意再因循先生及社會的要求而扮演彆人設定的角色。她勇敢的脫離常軌，一心去發展自己的藝術（繪畫）潛能，追求自由、獨立