An author may never know if their creation will be popular, liked, or just plain forgotten, but they can rely on one simple fact, that no matter what eventually someone is going to read their book and criticize it in one way or another. There are many different ways to criticize a novel, but biographical criticism lets a person look at the author for answers. Biographical criticism acknowledges that novels, plays, ect, are written by human beings and that an authors background can help us to better understand why an author wrote something. Biographical criticism is important for many reasons; one is that a writer's life may help to understand their literature. Also the reader may understand the elements the author uses in their work. The author's background often adds significance to the written work. Finally it helps the reader to understand the author's audience and intention for the novel.

This approach is very useful in understanding what the author intended, however one must be careful not to make a mistake when taking this approach. One is to not assume that the author's life is necessarily the same as the novels. One must also be careful not to use questionable sources of

Kate's life was set up for her to become an independent woman, and examination of her biography proves this fact. Not only was Kate a strong woman, but also she championed her cause in a time when women we not even considered close to the equal of men. This took bravery, but Kate had learned a long time ago what many women still need to find out, that being herself was important, not being chained down by society. Again and again her short story The Story of an Hour demonstrates that marriage may just be holding women back from the true freedom they need, they deserve.

While looking at biographical criticism one must remember that the author may have been living in very different times, their life could have been filled with hardships and despair, and not everything could have been written just to be literature. What the author went through in their life will greatly affect what they are writing about and how the literature was written. However not every assessment of an authors literature will be correct, people tend to be wrong sometimes. I will attempt to intemperate Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour.

The Story of an Hour is a short story written by Kate Chopin in 1984. The story begins with a heart-troubled wife receiving word that her husband died in a train wreck. The woman is at first devastated, and she retreats to the safety of her room to be alone. Soon, however the woman realizes that this is something more than she ever expected. Her husband may be dead but now she is no longer burdened to him, for the first time in her life she is truly free. The woman leaves the room and comes to the first floor. However at that instant the door opens and her husband walks through it. With a shriek she collapses to the floor dead. T

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Approximate Word count = 1190
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)