Chopin, Kate - Heather Kirk Thomas (essay date 1996)

Heather Kirk Thomas (essay date 1996)

SOURCE: Thomas, Heather Kirk. “‘The House of Sylvie’ in Kate Chopin's ‘Athénaïse’.” In Critical Essays on Kate Chopin, edited by Alice Hall Petry, pp. 207-17. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996.

[In the following essay, Thomas explores Sylvie's narrative function in “Athénaïse.”]

The imagination that produces work which bears and invites rereadings, which motions to future readings as well as contemporary ones, implies a shareable world and an endlessly flexible language.

—Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark1

Per Seyersted, perhaps Kate Chopin's most influential critic, considers her lengthy story “Athénaïse” among her “most important efforts.”2 Written 10-28 April 1895 and published in the fall of 1896 in the Atlantic Monthly, the story not only exhibits the Cane River and New Orleans settings...

[The entire page is 5822 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass