A Shameful Affair

by Kate Chopin

A Shameful AffairKate Chopin, american author of short stories and novels (1850-1904)This ebook presents «A Shameful Affair», from Kate Chopin. A dynamic table of contents enables to jump directly to the chapter selected.Table of Contents- About This Book- A Shameful Affair

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

10 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 17, 2015

About the author

Kate Chopin was an American author whose fiction grew out of the complex cultures and contradictions of Louisiana life, and she gradually became one of the most distinctive voices in nineteenth century literature. Raised in a household shaped by strong women of French and Irish heritage, she developed an early love for books and storytelling, and that immersion in language later shaped the quiet precision of her prose. After marrying and moving to New Orleans, then later to the small community of Cloutierville, she absorbed the rhythms, customs, and tensions of Creole and Cajun society, finding in its people the material that would feed both her sympathy and her sharp observational eye. When personal loss left her searching for direction, she began writing with the encouragement of a family friend, discovering not only a therapeutic outlet but a genuine vocation. Within a few years, her stories appeared in major magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, and The Century, where readers encountered her local-color sketches, her portrayals of women navigating desire and constraint, and her nuanced depictions of life in the American South. She published two story collections, Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, introducing characters whose emotional lives were depicted with unusual honesty. Her short fiction often explored subjects others avoided, including interracial relationships, female autonomy, and the quiet but powerful inner conflicts of everyday people. That same unflinching quality shaped The Awakening, the novel that would later become her most celebrated work. At the time of its publication, however, its frank treatment of a married woman’s emotional and sensual awakening unsettled many critics, who judged it harshly, yet Chopin continued to write stories that revealed her commitment to portraying women as fully human, with desires and ambitions that stretched beyond the confines of convention. She admired the psychological clarity of Guy de Maupassant, but she pushed beyond his influence to craft a voice that was unmistakably her own, direct yet lyrical, and deeply attuned to the inner lives of her characters. Though some of her contemporaries viewed her themes as daring or even improper, others recognized her narrative skill, and within a decade of her passing she was already being described as a writer of remarkable talent. Her rediscovery in the twentieth century led readers to appreciate how modern her concerns truly were: the struggle for selfhood, the tension between social expectations and private longing, and the resilience of women seeking lives that felt authentically theirs. Today, her stories and novels are widely read, admired for their clarity, emotional intelligence, and the boldness with which they illuminate the complexities of human experience.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The story ends on a humorous note that, while ambiguous, will seem satisfying to many readers, leaving open the interpretation of what happens next. Yet literary scholar Allen F. Stein, in a recent reconsideration of the story, questions what kind of future the couple could really have, given how Mildred’s class consciousness, her love of reading, and her strong regard for social propriety would inevitably clash with Fred’s lack of interest in intellectual endeavors, his contempt for books (particularly those by the authors she admires), and his impulsive and brutish behavior as a self-described hound. 'Thus,' concludes Stein, 'the future for Mildred and Fred may be more problematic than the seemingly upbeat conclusion to A Shameful Affair might lead one to believe.'” https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2021/0...

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short story about a young woman whose sexual feelings are awakened in a way that disturbs her.

[Athena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un gran descubrimiento de este año.
Kate Chopin es una maestra en la literatura de Estados Unidos, este libro presenta unos relatos interesante y que además son diferentes para el tipo de literatura que se daba en el siglo XIX.
Considero que esta mujer es una revolucionaria de su tiempo, ya que destaca por escribir temas que aun hoy son tabú.

Libro altamente recomendado.

[Agua María · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lectura suave, corta y entretenida