CAMINHOS DE TRANSGRESSÃO: A HEROÍNA QUE OUSA E DESAFIA NA OBRA-PRIMA DE KATE CHOPIN

Kate Chopin se tornou uma importante escritora da literatura realista dos Estados Unidos, no século XIX, por abordar a temática de conscientização feminina em sua obra. O universo feminino de suas narrativas constitui-se de personagens que buscam liberdade e autoafirmação em meio à hostilidade da dominação masculina na cultura fin de siècle. O despertar (1899), a obra-prima da autora, escandalizou a sociedade sulista estadunidense e foi considerado por grande parte da crítica como um romance vulgar e imoral, por tratar de questões como a independência afetiva, financeira e sexual da protagonista Edna Pontellier, que percorre um caminho transgressor em busca da emancipação. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho objetiva apresentar a trajetória de emancipação feminina da heroína, que rompe com o estereótipo de mulher ideal construído pela ideologia patriarcal, por meio de atitudes consideradas subversivas para a época. Para tanto, a análise será embasada pelos pressupostos teóricos de Virginia Wolf (1942) acerca da imagem do anjo do Lar, de Wendy Martin (1988) em relação às personagens femininas da obra, de Antônio Candido (1976), Edward Morgan Forster (2005) e Ruth Miguel (2016) sobre a personagem de ficção e de Gérard Genette (1972) a respeito do foco narrativo.

Edna Pontellier's endeavors as the main character in Kate Chopin’s "The Awakening" in the nineteenth-century liberal feminism

This study analyzed the struggle of Edna Pontellier in the 19th-century liberal feminism in the novel entitled The Awakening written by Kate Chopin. Liberal feminism assumes that the main problem of gender inequality is the domination of institutions by men. Men control the economic sphere, political sphere, along with other things. 19th-century liberal feminism put its focus on women's equal liberty. In general, the novel is about Edna Pontellier, the woman who was trapped in the figure of a mother and wife. She struggled as a woman in the 19th-century to get equal liberty and follow her desires. The researcher used the qualitative method in analyzing the struggle of Edna Pontellier. The results of this study show Edna’s struggles to pursue her desires through Mill and Taylor’s 19th-century liberal feminism theory. She wanted to get the same political rights, economic opportunities, and education that men get. The results also showed the two things that lead Edna to become a figure of liberal feminism: an unhappy married life and her desire to free herself.

Kate Chopin’s prose in the context of American transcendentalism

The article deals with the typological parallels between Kate Chopin’s literary-artistic system and philosophical doctrine of transcendentalism. As well as the majority of the writers of that time Kate Chopin could not avoid the influence of the ideas determining the peculiarities of cultural atmosphere in America, Ralf Waldo Emerson’s ideas in particular. Emerson’s philosophical and aesthetic conception proclaimed individual freedom the highest value, pointed out the intuitive nature of creative work. American transcendentalism encouraged to depict even mundane life events, empowered the art with a special role in the discovery of the world. These provisions were especially close to Kate Chopin and were rather peculiarly embodied in her works. Thus, Kate Chopin depicted mundane events from American life in all their diversity. In her works art is a way to penetrate into the deepest core of existence. The cross-cutting theme of Kate Chopin’s writing was her heroines’ understanding of their own significance, the necessity of freedom and self-realisation and that coincides greatly with Emerson’s “self-reliance” doctrine. Nevertheless, transcendentalism ideas being a part of cultural code of the time combined in Kate Chopin’s works with her individual worldview and that reflected in special ironic implication of her prose.

Hysterical Screaming & Cruel Reality-A Study of The Story of An Hour from the perspective of Peirce’s Semiotic Theory

<em>The Story of An Hour</em> has always been regarded as the representative work of the American writer Kate Chopin. Concise in its language, the novel mainly describes the psychological changes and emotional experience of Mrs. Mallard after she was informed of her husband’s death. Since its publication, relative research on the work has usually focused on the theme, expression and narrative strategy of the novel. Seldom finds that the use of signs, an inseparable part of the text, has been applied skillfully to express the theme. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the symbolic meaning of hysterical screaming and cruel reality in <em>The Story of an Hour </em>by analyzing the use of signs under the theoretical framework of Peirce’s Semiotics.

Metaphor of Cigarettes: Feminism in Kate Chopin’s An Egyptian Cigarette

Objectives: Kate Chopin is regarded as one of the pioneers of the feminist literature in the United States. Her works mainly express her caring for women. Since the 1960s, the western academic circle has set off a long overdue upsurge in the study of Kate Chopin and her works, repositioning and giving Chopin a classic status in the history of American literature.This paper aims to analyze the revival and awakening of the heroine’s self-consciousness and reveal the inner world of a “new woman” at the turn of the century through the heroine’s behavior of taking the initiative to smoke and eventually giving up.Cigarettes, which appear repeatedly in this short novel with symbolic meanings, have a special metaphorical function. Through analyzing the social and historical environment of the emergence of “new women” in American society and the “new women” in An Egyptian Cigarette, this paper attempts to explore the multiple political and cultural connotations reflected by cigarettes and reveal Chopin’s feminist consciousness through the novella.

Collapse of the Scenic Method

Beyond the imperative or appearance of realism, some scenic impulse in nineteenth-century fiction determines narrative pace. One looks, then, to Charlotte Brontë, to Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even to the realist Balzac in his theatrical tendencies. This chapter reckons with how the scenic impulse that engenders scene-and-summary fiction also leads to its collapse. Chapters become scenes; chapter entries become rising curtains; summaries become prologues for a scene that waits beyond the threshold. One sees it in Zola, Howells, Kate Chopin …. But the seeming culmination appears when Henry James, in the 1890s, avows that he is bound to “the scenic method.” James’s career is one of the most illuminating representations of the arc of the scene-and-summary novel, and its climax appears at the end of the nineteenth century. From there, with late James, one senses a resurgence of romance in the form of narrative lyricism, and one begins to wonder whether pace will be dissolved in that lyrical expanse.

Analisis Cerpen untuk Pembelajaran Sejarah Amerika

Penelitian ini mengkaji tiga cerita pendek Amerika yang berlatar tiga zaman sejarah yang berbeda: “The Minister’s Black Veil” oleh Nathaniel Hawthorne (Kaum Puritan di New England), “Désirée’s Baby” oleh Kate Chopin (Perbudakan di Louisiana sebelum Perang Saudara), dan Ken Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie” (Pernikahan antar ras di Amerika tahun 1970-an). Dengan menggunakan metode close reading, penelitian kualitatif ini menganalisis ketiga cerpen yang menjadi data primer dan mengkontekstualisasikannya dengan sejarah Amerika, biografi pendek masing-masing pengarang, dan teks-teks yang relevan yang diperlakukan sebagai data sekunder. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pertama, ketiga cerpen menggambarkan intoleransi, krisis identitas, dan rasisme dalam berbagai tingkatan. Kedua, supremasi agama dan warna kulit mendominasi sepanjang sejarah Amerika seperti yang diungkapkan secara imajinatif oleh setiap cerita. Ketiga, meskipun diperlakukan tidak adil, tokoh perempuan bertahan hidup. Sikap mereka memberikan pandangan baru tentang peran perempuan yang sering diabaikan oleh sejarah resmi. Sebagai simpulan, cerita pendek dapat diberikan sebagai materi pengayaan yang bermakna dalam pembelajaran sejarah untuk menggugah cara berpikir kritis, empati, serta kegembiraan dalam belajar.

Typical Life of American Wife of the late 1800s: An Analysis of Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The life of the typical American women in the late 1800s was strictly confined to the four walls of a house. For a wife, marriage, husband and family were the destiny. She had no legal political right or voice in public sphere. They were not supposed to involve in any intellectual pursuits but only in domestic chores like cooking, sewing, cleaning etc. The condition of women in any class (upper, lower or middle) was more or less same. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin were noted American writers of nineteenth century. Both writers outrageously expressed their strong views on women, marriage and sex. They were revolutionaries of their time. This paper is going to analyse how Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” depict typical public expectations about marriage and women of late 1800s. It also distinguishes the representation of women and wife in the nineteenth century patriarchal American society.