Kate Chopin Criticism
Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty, was an American novelist and short story writer whose exploration of female independence and sexuality challenged the social norms of 19th-century Southern society. Her most famous novel, The Awakening, is a pioneering work of psychological realism that portrays Edna Pontellier’s struggle between societal expectations and personal fulfillment. Set in the moral landscape of 1890s America, Chopin uses symbolic imagery, such as the sea and birds, to highlight Edna's journey towards self-realization. Initially met with uproar due to its candid depiction of adultery, the novel was neglected until its mid-20th-century revival, where it sparked discussions on the parallels between Chopin's life and her protagonist's experiences. Notable critics such as Emily Toth and Elaine Showalter have discussed its feminist undertones, viewing the work as a defiant voice in female literary tradition.
Beyond The Awakening, Chopin's collections Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie made her an essential figure in local-color fiction. Through nuanced portrayals of Creole and Cajun life, her stories delve into themes of identity and autonomy. Critics like Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt and Martha J. Cutter note how Chopin transcended local colorism, engaging with broader social and psychological themes. Her works often reflect the influence of her early life in St. Louis and her time in New Orleans, as discussed by Emily Toth, who examines how these experiences enriched her narrative style.
Chopin's legacy is marked by her bold examination of societal constraints on individual expression, which paved the way for future feminist literature. Her works continue to be analyzed for their psychological depth and insights into gender and autonomy, as seen in discussions by Margit Stange and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock. Today, Chopin is celebrated not only for her significant contributions to American literature but also for influencing feminist discourse through her integration of local color with universal themes.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Chopin, Kate (Short Story Criticism)
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Kate Chopin's New Orleans Years
(summary)
In the following essay, Toth explicates biographical aspects of Chopin's stories set in New Orleans.
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Chopin's ‘Désirée's Baby’
(summary)
In the following essay, Foy asserts that “Désirée's Baby” is an exploration of the dark side of the protagonist's personality. Foy argues that Armand's ruthlessness is more psychologically complicated than it appears on first reading, transcending its social implications to explore the dark side of personality.
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Kate Chopin's ‘Charlie’
(summary)
In the following essay, Blythe counters the prevailing Freudian interpretation of “Charlie” and asserts that it “be read as an exceptionally strong and forthright story of the growth into womanhood of a young girl of unusually fine qualities and potential.”
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Insistent Refrains and Self-Discovery: Accompanied Awakenings in Three Stories by Kate Chopin
(summary)
In the following essay, Ellis delineates the role of music in “After the Winter,” “At Cheniere Caminada,” and “A Vocation and a Voice.”
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The Can River Characters and Revisionist Mythmaking in the Work of Kate Chopin
(summary)
In the following essay, Shurbutt maintains that in her fiction Chopin revises accepted myths about duty, marriage, and sexuality in order to achieve a more realistic understanding of the human condition.
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Losing the Battle but Winning the War: Resistance to Patriarchal Discourse in Kate Chopin's Short Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, Cutter traces the development of Chopin's resistance to patriarchal authority as evinced in her short fiction.
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Fear, Freedom, and the Perils of Ethnicity: Otherness in Kate Chopin's ‘Beyond the Bayou’ and Zora Neale Hurston's ‘Sweat’
(summary)
In the following essay, Green finds parallels in the portrayal of marginalized women in “Beyond the Bayou” and Zora Neale Hurston's “Sweat.”
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Kate Chopin's Local Color Fiction and the Politics of White Supremacy
(summary)
In the following essay, Gunning examines issues of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and male aggression in “In Sabine,” “La Belle Zoraïde,” and “A No-Account Creole.”
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‘Acting Like Fools’: The Ill-Fated Romances of ‘At the 'Cadian Ball’ and ‘The Storm’
(summary)
In the following essay, Berkove elucidates Chopin's attitude toward adultery and morality as evinced through her stories “At the 'Cadian Ball” and “The Storm.”
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‘The House of Sylvie’ in Kate Chopin's ‘Athénaïse’
(summary)
In the following essay, Thomas explores Sylvie's narrative function in “Athénaïse.”
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The Politics of Rhetorical Strategy: Kate Chopin's ‘La Belle Zoraïde’
(summary)
In the following essay, Wolf contends that Chopin's indirect rhetorical strategy functions to attack prevailing myths of racial superiority and Southern womanhood in “La Belle Zoraïde.”
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Awakened Men in Kate Chopin's Creole Stories
(summary)
In the following essay, Brown discusses Chopin's depiction of men who experience liberation from cultural restrictions in their relationships with women.
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Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin's ‘The Story of an Hour’
(summary)
In the following essay, Berkove views the character of Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour” as “an immature egotist and a victim of her own extreme self-assertion.”
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Kate Chopin's ‘One Story’: Casting a Shadowy Glance on the Ethics of Regionalism
(summary)
In the following essay, Staunton considers Chopin's attitude toward regionalism and local color fiction and discusses her short fiction as regionalist writing.
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Kate Chopin's ‘Lilacs’ and the Myth of Persephone
(summary)
In the following essay, Crosland explores Chopin's use of the Persephone myth in her story “Lilacs.” The myth of Persephone provides a framework for Kate Chopin's 1894 story “Lilacs,” a tale of ambiguous good and evil subtly defined through mythological allusion. Chopin's use of myth in her other writing, the prominence of mythology in the literary magazines of her day, her familiarity with authors who employed it, and evidence in the story itself all argue for her reliance on it in “Lilacs.”
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In Possession of the Letter: Kate Chopin's ‘Her Letters’
(summary)
In the following essay, Weinstock contrasts the treatment of female sexuality in Chopin's “Her Letters” and The Awakening.
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Kate Chopin's New Orleans Years
(summary)
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Chopin, Kate (Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism)
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Kate Chopin's The Awakening as Feminist Criticism
(summary)
In the following essay, originally published in 1976, Toth argues that The Awakening belongs to the didactic feminist tradition of women's literature.
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Symbolic Setting in Kate Chopin's ‘A Shameful Affair’
(summary)
In the following essay, Dyer discusses the ways in which Chopin's use of setting in “A Shameful Affair” prefigures the symbolism of The Awakening. “A Shameful Affair,” written on June 5th and 9th of 1891, represents an exciting thematic prelude to The Awakening. In it Mildred Orme, for a moment in her life at least, trades volumes of Ibsen and Browning for the broad, brawny shoulders of Fred Evelyn, a farmhand. She suffers more from guilt than Edna Pontellier seems to. Nevertheless, she makes discoveries about her physical nature that are as overwhelming, forceful, and important as Edna's. She awakens eight years before Chopin's best-known heroine. She prepares the way.
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A Note on Kate Chopin's ‘The White Eagle’
(summary)
In the following essay, Dyer analyzes the symbolism in Chopin's little-known late story “The White Eagle.”
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The Awakening: A Political Romance
(summary)
In the following essay, Thornton examines Edna Pontellier's growing awareness of politics in Creole society in The Awakening.
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Techniques of Distancing in the Fiction of Kate Chopin
(summary)
In the following essay, Dyer discusses Chopin's technique of appealing to her readers' prejudices to openly discuss in her short stories topics that were normally considered taboo at the time.
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Illusion and Archetype: The Curious Story of Edna Pontellier
(summary)
In the following essay, Batten examines Chopin's ambiguity of meaning regarding the notion of illusion in The Awakening.
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Chopin's ‘A Shameful Affair.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Simpson discusses images of nature and society in “A Shameful Affair.” Mildred Orme, in Kate Chopin's “A Shameful Affair,” is a socially conventional and sexually repressed young woman who has come to the Kraummer farm to escape the sexual demands that were made on her in civilized, urban society. Chopin uses fertile nature imagery to show Mildred being drawn out of the realm of sheltered social convention and into a natural world that is rich with sensuous physical surroundings. Here Mildred is forced to recognize and struggle with her sexuality.
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The Female Artist in Kate Chopin's The Awakening: Birth and Creativity
(summary)
In the following essay, Stone views Chopin's birth imagery in The Awakening as symbolic of the birth of Edna Pontellier as an artist.
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‘A Language Which Nobody Understood’: Emancipatory Strategies in The Awakening
(summary)
In the following essay, Yaeger argues that language, not sexual liberation, is the element that makes The Awakening a “transgressive” novel.
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Kate Chopin's The Awakening: An Assault on American Racial and Sexual Mythology
(summary)
In the following essay, Elfenbein contends that Chopin challenged American racist and sexist notions about sexuality in The Awakening.
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The Awakening in a Course on Women in Literature
(summary)
In the following essay, Ewell explains her approach to teaching The Awakening. The novel offers a paradigmatic tale of a woman's abortive struggle toward selfhood in an oppressive, uncomprehending society, emerging as a touchstone in her course on women in literature.
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Edna's Wisdom: A Transitional and Numinous Merging
(summary)
In the following essay, Giorcelli argues the Chopin's ambiguities in The Awakening support both her own and her protagonist's “cyclical view of existence.”
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Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book
(summary)
In the following essay, Showalter examines the ways in which Chopin defied the female literary tradition with The Awakening.
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The Historical and Cultural Setting
(summary)
In the following essay, Walker explores ways to incorporate Chopin's New Orleans Creole setting into classroom discussion of The Awakening. One dimension of Kate Chopin's The Awakening likely to be overlooked in the classroom is the richness of the historical and cultural background against which the novel takes place. New Orleans Creole culture in the late nineteenth century constituted a world unto itself—a set of traditions, mores, and customs unlike any other in America. Indeed, Chopin's descriptions of this culture serve as more than mere backdrop; the contrast between Edna's upbringing in Kentucky and the Creole society of Léonce Pontellier creates a subtle but persistent thread in the novel, one that helps to explain Edna's restlessness and alienation from the society around her. Approaching the novel as—at least in part—an account of the clash between the dominant southern culture in which Edna was raised and the New Orleans Creole subculture in which she finds herself after her marriage allows students not only to better understand a part of American cultural history but also to see Edna as a woman influenced by her past as well as by the events and surroundings of her present.
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Personal Property: Exchange Value and the Female Self in The Awakening
(summary)
In the following essay, Stange discusses representations of the female self in The Awakening.
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Semiotic Subversion in ‘Désirée's Baby’
(summary)
In the following essay, Peel provides a semiotic and political interpretation of “Désirée's Baby.”
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Literature of Deliverance: Images of Nature in The Awakening
(summary)
In the following essay, Radcliff-Umstead explores the sociopolitical aspects of The Awakening as illustrated by Chopin's nature imagery.
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The Strange Demise of Edna Pontellier
(summary)
In the following essay, Malzahn examines the narrative of The Awakening for an explanation of Edna's motives for committing suicide.
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Athena of Goose? Kate Chopin's Ironical Treatment of Motherhood in ‘Athénaïse.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Morgan-Proux argues that Chopin's apparent glorification of childbirth and motherhood in the story “Athénaïse” is ironic.
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Notes toward a fin-de-siècle Reading of Kate Chopin's The Awakening
(summary)
In the following essay, Schulz explores similarities between The Awakening and other works written at the end of the nineteenth century.
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Chopin's ‘Ripe Figs.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Branscomb discusses the importance of time in 'Ripe Figs.' He argues that the work presents deeper conflicts and richer themes than previously observed, emphasizing that the relationship between the two characters is less harmonious than suggested by other critics.
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Multi-Cultural Aesthetic in Kate Chopin's ‘A Gentleman of Bayou Teche.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Steiling discusses Chopin's use of irony to address regional and ethnic stereotypes in “A Gentleman of Bayou Teche.” He highlights that Chopin understood how subcultures can be sensitive to perceptions by outsiders and illustrates the problems of writing about regional American life while proposing solutions that resonate with current pluralist and multicultural ideals.
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Kate Chopin's Scribbling Women and the American Literary Marketplace
(summary)
In the following essay, Thomas examines works in which Chopin satirized the life and career of the typical nineteenth-century American woman fiction writer.
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The Awakening: Waking Up at the End of the Line
(summary)
In the following essay, Freeman explores the notion of the sublime in The Awakening.
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Un-Utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in The Awakening
(summary)
In the following essay, Wolff examines The Awakening in terms of nineteenth-century medical discourse on female sexuality.
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Reader Activation of Boundaries in Kate Chopin's ‘Beyond the Bayou’
(summary)
In the following essay, Llewellyn examines Chopin's symbolic use of the physical setting of “Beyond the Bayou.”
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Kate Chopin: Pre-Freudian Freudian
(summary)
In the following essay, Taylor and Fineman examine psychoanalytic elements in The Awakening.
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Rethinking White Female Silences: Kate Chopin's Local Color Fiction and the Politics of White Supremacy
(summary)
In the following essay, Gunning analyzes Chopin's works for evidence of her views on racial violence and stereotypes.
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Was Kate Chopin a Feminist?
(summary)
In the following essay, Delbanco explains why he believes Chopin's works deserve a place among the classics of American literature.
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Unlinking Race and Gender: The Awakening as a Southern Novel
(summary)
In the following essay, Ewell argues that both The Awakening and Chopin were heavily shaped by the tradition of Southern American literature.
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Edna Pontellier's Revolt against Nature
(summary)
In the following essay, Nelles argues that Edna's suicide at the conclusion of The Awakening is the result of her realization that she is pregnant.
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The Search for a Feminine Voice in the Works of Kate Chopin
(summary)
In the following essay, Cutter explores the differences in Chopin's portrayal of women in her short stories from that in The Awakening.
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Kate Chopin and (Stretching) the Limits of Local Color Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, McCullough attempts to show how Chopin both challenged and reinforced the status quo of Southern regional writing.
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Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin's ‘The Story of an Hour.’
(summary)
In the following essay, Berkove contends that Chopin's narration of “The Story of an Hour” is ironic rather than straightforward, suggesting that the protagonist, Louise Mallard, is not a heroine but an immature egotist whose self-assertion leads to contradictions and abnormal attitudes that structure the story.
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Kate Chopin's The Awakening as Feminist Criticism
(summary)
- Further Reading