The Importance of Point of View in Kate Chopin’s Fiction Essay

The Importance of Point of View in Kate Chopins Fiction The impact of Kate Chopins novel, The awaken, on society resulted in her ruin, both(prenominal) literary and social. Reviewers called it vulgar, improper, unhealthy, and sickening. One critic said that he wished she had never compose it, and another wrote that to truly describe the novel would entail language not fit for publication (Stipe 16). The overwhelming condemnation of the entire book quite than just Ednas suicide seems surprising in light of her palmy short twaddle career. The themes that Chopin explores in her novel are present in both Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, her short story collections published before The Awakening, and the other short stories she published separately. The only middling explanation is that people misinterpreted Chopins short stories about male/ young-bearing(prenominal) relationships as senti handstal and witty stories rather than serious condemnations of the social st ation that left women so little choice while giving men little restriction. This misinterpretation even occurs today. In classes I have interpreted that cover Chopin, many students and instructors read her short stories as romance, as celebrations of motherhood, and as empowerment of the matriarchy, yet they read The Awakening and recognize Chopins reproach of society without seeing any serious contradiction in their before readings of her short stories. However, the overwhelming pattern in Chopins fiction seems to either satirize or undermine the dry lands of her characters. One way in which she does this is by point of view. A look at this technique reveals the genesis of The Awakening in even the earliest of her published fiction dealing with male/female sexual relationsh... ...man Writer in the South 1859-1936. Baton pigment Louisiana State UP, 1981.Le Marquand, Jane. Kate Chopin as Feminist Subverting the French Androcentric Influence. recently South 2 (1996). 26 J uly 2002 .Stipe, Stormy. The Book That Ruined Kate Chopins Career. Biblio 4.1 (1999) 16-17.Notes1 Patricia Evans notes in a discussion of Chopins place in the literary canon that in the first modern historical survey of southern literature, The South in American Literature, Jay B. Hubbell identifies one hundred male writers, but only cinque women. He justifies this omission by stating, their writing was generally sentimental and lacking(p) (4).2 In The Awakening, Robert LeBrun turns way from Edna when she proposes they live openly together. He cannot violate the codes of his world so blatantly.