Kate Chopin

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Kate Chopin The Awakening
Literary Perspectives
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Critical Responses in 1899 (Published April 1899)

• Trite and sordid
• Essentially vulgar
• Unhealthily introspective and morbid in feeling
   
• . . .its disagreeable glimpses of sensuality are
  repellent" (from The Outlook,1899)
•  

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• From the St. Louis Daily
• Globe-Democrat (1899)
• "It is not a healthy book if it points any
  particular moral or teaches any lesson, the fact
  is not apparent. . . . Mrs. Pontellier does not
  love her husband. The poison of passion seems to
  have entered her system, with her mother's milk."

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• From The Providence Sunday Journal (1899)
• "The worst of such stories is that they will fall
  into the hands of youth, leading them to dwell on
  things that only matured persons can understand,
  and promoting unholy imaginations and unclean
  desires. It is nauseating to remember that those
  who object to the bluntness of our older writers
  will excuse and justify the gilded dirt of these
  latter days."

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• The Chicago Tribune June 1, 1899
• That the book is strong and that Miss Chopin
  has a keen knowledge of certain phases of
  feminine character will not be denied. But it
  was not necessary for a writer of so great
  refinement and poetic grace to enter the
  overworked field of sex fiction.

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• From The Nation (1899)
• "Had Chopin lived by Prof. William James's
  advice to do one thing a day one does not want to
  do (in Creole society, two would perhaps be
  better), flirted less and looked after her
  children more, or even assisted at more
  accouchements . . . we need not have been put to
  the unpleasantness of reading about her and the
  temptations she trumped up for herself."

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• Public Opinion, June 22, 1899
• If the author had secured our sympathy for this
  unpleasant person Edna it would have been a
  small victory, but we are well satisfied when
  Mrs. Pontellier deliberately swims out to her
  death in the waters of the gulf.
• Extracted from the Norton Critical Edition (Ed.
  Margo Culley, 2nd ed., New York W.W. Norton
  Company, 1994).

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Chopins response Having a group of people at
my disposal the characters in her novel, I
thought it might be entertaining (to myself) to
throw them together and see what would happen. .
. .
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• I never dreamed of Mrs. Pontellier making such a
  mess of things and working out her own damnation
  as she did. (Chopins response cont.)
• (Book News July 1899).

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Contemporary Response to The Awakening

• Shes one of those writers whose sense of craft
  puts her right on the edge of poetry. . . . The
  rediscovery of The Awakening came as a Godsend,
  the most incredible gift to the womens movement
  Prof. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory U.
• Others deplore the novels misuse as a
  political manifesto for feminism.

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• The Awakening is consummate art. The theme is
  difficult, but it is handled with cunning craft.
  The work is more than unusual. It is unique.
  The integrity of its art is that of well-knit
  individuality at one with itself, with nothing
  superfluous to weaken the impression of a perfect
  whole.
• C.L. Deyo,
  reviewer

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Contemporary Controversy

• When Chopins work became available in the 1970s,
  scholars defined her as a feminist, a local
  colorist, a regionalist, a romantic, an
  anti-romantic, a neo-transcendentalist, a
  realist, a naturalist, and an existentialist.
  Critics are still debating the issue.

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Well?

• Realism?
• Regionalism?
• Local Color?
• Naturalism?
• Romanticism?
• Feminism?

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On Realism

• presents an accurate imitation of life
• the characters are drawn to present the reader
  with the illusion of actual experience
• topics covered include love, marriage,
  parenthood, infidelity, and death
• characters find life dull and are often unhappy,
  but find touches of joy and beauty in life
  (M. H. Abrams)

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On Local Color and Regionalism

• fiction and poetry that focuses on the
  characters, dialect, customs, topography, and
  other features particular to a specific region.
• Its weaknesses may include nostalgia or
  sentimentality.

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More on Local Color

• According to the Oxford Companion to American
  Literature, "In local-color literature one finds
  the dual influence of romanticism and realism,
  since the author frequently looks away from
  ordinary life to distant lands, strange customs,
  or exotic scenes, but retains through minute
  detail a sense of fidelity and accuracy of
  description" (439).

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Local Color vs. Regionalism

• Regional literature incorporates the broader
  concept of sectional differences, but some
  critics have argued convincingly that the
  distinguishing characteristic that separates
  local color writers from regional writers is
  instead the exploitation of and condescension
  toward their subjects that the local color
  writers demonstrate (From the Encyclopedia of
  Southern Literature).

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• Local Color vs. Realism
• Eric Sundquist "Economic or political power can
  itself be seen to be definitive. . .those in
  power (say, white urban males) have been more
  often judged 'realists,' while those removed from
  the seats of power (say, Midwesterners, blacks,
  immigrants, or women) have been categorized as
  regionalists (from the Encyclopedia of Southern
  Literature).

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What does Chopin do?

• Draws on personal experience to color the
  settings, details, and characters.

• Presents a clearly drawn portrait of life on
  Grand Isle and in New Orleans.

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• Shows Catholic Creoles with European customs,
  polyglot witty speech, rich agricultural
  landscape of picturesque Natchitoches Parish.
• Skillfully integrates French in the English
  narrative

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• Develops a moving, soaring, lyrical, poetic style
  with beautiful use of imagery
• Exceptional depictions of nature -- not
  necessarily as a benevolent force

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Naturalism

• The naturalist often describes his characters as
  though they are conditioned and controlled by
  environment, heredity, instinct, or chance. But
  he also suggests a compensating humanistic value
  in his characters or their fates which affirms
  the significance of the individual and of his
  life. . . .

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• The tension for the naturalist writer is. .
  .between the new, discomfiting truths. . .found
  in the ideas and life of the late
  nineteenth-century. . .and. . .his desire to find
  some meaning in experience which reasserts the
  validity of the human enterprise (from Pizers
  Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century
  American Fiction, rev. ed. (1984).

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Romanticism

• a tendency towards melodrama and idyll a more
  or less formal abstractness and, on the other
  hand, a tendency to plunge into the underside of
  consciousness a willingness to abandon moral
  questions or to ignore the spectacle of man in
  society, or to consider these things only
  indirectly or abstractly (Chase, The American
  Novel and Its Tradition ix).

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Feminism
Chopin denied that she was a feminist or a
suffragette. Her fiction repeatedly deals with
female characters efforts to find place, love,
and autonomy in a society that denies these needs.
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According to Treu, Chopin took women seriously
and had a different understanding of freedom
spirit, soul, character living life within the
constraints the world and God gave. Chopin
wrote about many kinds of people, but all seem to
lack a clear concept of their own roles and
purposes in life a constant groping for
self-knowledge shapes their personalities and
actions.
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Literary criticism involves judging the value of
literature based on such things as the personal
and/or cultural significance of the themes, the
uses of language, the insights and impact, and
the aesthetic quality of the text. Part of a
critics job is to patrol the boundaries of good
writing and determine what cultural value should
be placed on a text. What constitutes, guides,
and legitimizes interpretation?  
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Literary theory attempts to explain what the
nature of literature is, what functions it has,
what the relation of text is to author, to
reader, to language, to society, to history.
Since literary theory provides a position
through which or from which the reader/critic
interacts with the text, the theoretical stance
will prejudiceor at least informthe critics
evaluation. Source Lye, John. The Differences
between Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, and
Theory Itself. For ENGL 4F70 Contemporary
Literary Criticism. St. Catherines, Ontario
Brock University, 1998. 18 Mar. 2005.
www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/crit.vs.theory.
html. 
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Theories of Literary CriticismMarxist
challenges power structure Feminist Marxist re
females New Historicist bio historical
context Archetypal/Mythic universal
patterns Freudian sexual archetypes
unconscious New Criticism explores how the text
is written Postmodernist/Deconstructionist the
value of any text is relative, personal, and
subjective
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What are her themes?

• the dilemma of an individuals conflicting
  responsibilities to others and to herself
• a wifes impatience and frustration with marriage
• A rejection of the traditional roles of women
• a womans acknowledgement of and responses to her
  sexual urges

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• the results of acting on ones nature and
  impulses
• alienation
• the search for freedom
• the search for identitya theme that recurs in
  Chopins work
• How do her themes fit in with the various
  literary aesthetics, theories, and perspectives?

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1. Find passages, evidence that identify it as
belonging to your literary school then explain
how critics with your perspective would interpret
the novel (20 min.).

• CFHS Naturalist, Feminist Marxist
• RHS Romantic Archetypal/Mythic
• SHS Realist, Regionalist Historicist

2. Report back (3 min. each 10 min. total) 3.
Vote?