（英语语言文学专业论文）十九世纪美国女性的新觉醒：解读凯特o肖班的《觉醒》.pdf

abstract the american female regional novel writer-kate chopin in her work the awakening depicts the plight of women in the nineteenth century, who were caught between fulfilling their traditional role and searching for a new social order. despite the difficulty of determining a new identity in a society where great pressure is placed on women to maintain the conventional social function, the protagonist edna manages to resist conventional responsibilities, to achieve a level of autonomy, self-growth, personal identity, and spiritual awakening. this thesis is divided into three chapters. chapter one, “introduction”, includes a biographical background of the female writer and a brief introduction to the content of her classic work the awakening as well as the remarks on it. chapter two gives an analysis to the external concern to woman from the concept of space with the distinction between public sphere and private sphere, and it is divided by sections of “woman and family”, “woman and society”. chapter three gives an analysis to the internal concern to woman from the spirit, and it is divided by sections of “a semiotic approach”, “woman and sexuality”, “woman and spirituality”. by proceeding a kristevan psychoanalysis to the heroine, the thesis explores the female protagonists conscious and unconscious longing for her self-awakening and autonomy in the nineteenth century patriarchal american society. with enormous courage, the female protagonist chooses to embrace her nascent consciousness of her selfhood regardless of her inability to change the conventional social order. in this sense, edna becomes a definitive frontier feminist. key words: nascent consciousness; patriarchy; space; psychoanalysis 1 chapter one introduction kate chopin (1851-1904), born in st. louis, missouri, was the daughter of an immigrant irishman, thomas oflaherty, and a frenchamerican mother, eliza faris. including two brothers from her fathers first marriage, there were five children in her family. kate was the third of the five, and she was the only child that lived past the age of twenty-five. her brothers died in their early twenties and her sisters died in their infancy. in 1855, at the age of five, chopin was sent to a catholic boarding school, the sacred heart academy, in st. louis. yet, two months later after her fathers death, she moved to live with her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, all of them widows. she was then educated by her great-grandmother, victoria verdon charleville for the next two years. chopin studied french and music. in addition, she also learned all of the latest gossip on the women in st. louis. kate grew up surrounded by independent single women. her great-great-grandmother was the first woman in st. louis who obtained a legal separation from her husband. in 1857 kate returned to the sacred heart academy. she soon rose to the top of her class, won many medals, and became a popular and cynical debutante. at the academy, kate met her soul mate and best friend, kitty garesch. in 1863, during the time of the american civil war, kates grandmother died three days before christmas, and her best friend 2 kitty was banished with her family for their confederate “sympathies” the same year. tragic events in chopins life always occurred on holy days. george, kates half-brother also died on mardi gras day due to typhoid fever. her father died eight years previously on all saints day. all of these unfortunate incidents combines to produce strong doubts and skeptical thoughts concerning religion in kate chopin. edna pontellier, in the awakening, represents chopins lost faith in religion. in 1870, at the age of twenty, kate married oscar chopin. like kate, her husband was also a french catholic. during their honeymoon in europe, kate for the first time experienced the air of freedom and independence, and she wrote her experiences down in her journals. kate had five boys and two girls while they lived in new orleans. later they moved to a small louisiana community. in december 1882, kates husband died from swamp fever. kate then sold her husbands cotton business and moved back to st. louis to live with her mother, eliza. yet, her mother died a year later. kate was left alone with her seven children. eight years after her husbands death, kate began to write. she was then 39. she wrote about the stories that she heard and people she had known in louisiana. she became successful soon after she started her writing career. one possible conclusion from the information of chopins close relationship with her family and their deaths is that she was constantly searching and questioning her sense of identity. very possibly, she needed to find an identity for herself as a human being. she did this by 3 writing. however, whatever her reasons for doing so, at age 39, kate chopin began to write fiction seriously. certain obvious factors contributed to this result. first, after her husbands death, she needed to earn and provide for her children. second, chopin herself was a voracious reader and was strongly inspired by classic writers, such as guy de maupassant. besides, kate also had many friends who had similar literary interests. in june of 1889, kate started to write her short story, “wiser than a god.” by the end of the year, she wrote three more short stories. she also began her first novel, at fault, at the same time. at fault was published in the next year, 1890. in 1894, she published bayou folk, a collection of the four stories she had written. this collection won her high critical praise. the stories in bayou folk are written in the local-color tradition with the characters of self-reliant women as protagonists who struggle for a sense of self and purpose. the female characters who appear in bayou folk foreshadow her most famous character, edna pontellier, in her second novel, the awakening. chopin published her second novel, the awakening, in 1899, at age 49. it was inspired by a true story of an infamous woman in the french quarter of new orleans. at that time, chopin was already a well known writer of local color, who had published over one hundred stories, essays, and sketches in many literary magazines. with this novel, chopin finally came into her own as a novelist. unfortunately and ironically, this novel also ended her critical reputation and literary career, for the society at the time was not ready to accept both the 4 protagonist ednas “awakening” from half-consciously being a woman and a wife submissive to a man and her awakening of her own need of liberty from all kinds of limitations at the time (seyersted 1979: 173). nor was society ready for writers such as kate chopin to write about female emotions, the need of female sexuality, and the kinds of oppression that women experienced. after being turned down by the critical readers at the society because of her second novel, the awakening, and being denied admission to enter the st. louis fine arts club, chopin was truly hurt by the reactions of the audience. however, she was still a popular inspiration for female readers. the following five years before her death, she wrote only a few stories, and fewer of them were being published. kate chopin died of a cerebral hemorrhage on august 22, 1904. kate chopin began her writing after the age of thirty-nine, and within a ten year span of writing, she created a new page of feminist thought that is ahead of her time. kate was the first writer who was truly aware of a sense of being free and of her identity as a woman in a time and society when middle-class women were considered to be the possession of men during the nineteenth century in america. chopin dares to question society; and this attribute is reflected in the words of mademoiselle reisz, a character in the awakening, who says, “the artist is one who dares and defies” (61). as we all know, the awakening is kate chopins classic novel. the story begins at grade isle, a vacation spot of wealthy creoles 5 from new orleans. edna, the heroine, is there with her two sons and her husband lonce who comes and goes because of business. edna is not creole, but her husband is. she has never felt that she fits in with their lifestyle. edna has always done what is expected of a woman, including marrying a man she does not love. the man regards her as a possession rather than an individual. while on vacation, edna falls in love with robert lebrun. she often goes to the beach with him. she begins to realize for the first time, at age 28, that she is an individual. edna feels like one who awakens gradually from a dream to reality. after this discovery, edna changes. she disregards her husbands wishes and often ignores her children. she learns to swim which makes her begin to feel more independent. edna befriends two women, mademoiselle reisz, a pianist, and madame ratignolle, a motherly lady. distressed when robert leaves for mexico, edna often visits mademoiseel reisz to whom robert often writes. edna continues to disregard the customs of society. her husband becomes very upset and insists that they must observe les convenances (social conventions) if they want to keep up with society. he tries to get her to attend her sisters wedding, but she refuses. lonce goes to new york on business, but edna refuses to go with him. the children are with their grandparents, so edna enjoys her time alone. she starts an affair with alce arobin, who introduces her to the importance of sex which she did not enjoy with her husband. she closes up her house and moves to a smaller one. upset, her husband puts a notice in the newspaper which says that their house is being remodeled. he tries to 6 hide ednas strange behavior from his friends. edna, however, loves her new pigeon-house. every step she takes toward relieving herself of obligations adds to her strength and expansion as an individual. one day robert returns. edna runs into him at mademoiselle reiszs home. edna is upset to find he has been in the city for two days and has not contacted her. even though she is having an affair, she is still in love with robert. the two meet again a few days later, and robert walks her home. she kisses him, and he returns her passion. he confesses that he went to mexico because he was in love with her. he knows there is no hope for them because she is married. they are interrupted by a message for edna to go to the bedside of madame ratignolle who is ill. she asks robert to wait for her. when she returns, he is gone. he leaves a note that reads, “i love you. good-bye, because i love you.” edna is so distressed that she returns to grand isle where she goes swimming in the cold sea. purposely she swims out too far and drowns herself. the awakening is a beautifully written book in terms of both language and themes. lucy monroe reviewed it for the march 1899 issue of book news. monroes review praises chopins work as a “remarkable novel” and applauds it as “subtle and a brilliant kind of art”. monroe further depicts the novel as “so keen in its analysis of character, so subtle in its presentation of emotional effects that it seems to reveal life as well as present it” (toth 1990: 328-339). however, it was criticized after publication in the popular local newspaper st. louise daily globe-democrat, as a “morbid book” 7 without “any particular moral” that had not taught “any lesson” (culley 1976: 163). francis porcher concludes her critique saying that the novel “leaves one sick of human nature” (culley 1976: 146). even william dean howells, a widely respected critic and editor for harpers and atlantic, also argues that american authors should avoid “certain facts of life which are not usually talked of before young people, and especially young ladies” (toth 1990: 278). as the book was judged ugly and sinful by the critics, it was banned for six years. therefore, chopins persona and career as a writer were tainted by media. however, when readers and critics today reexamine the novel, they discover that the meaning chopin conveys is just what critics overlooked a century ago. the issues proposed in the novel such as womans autonomy and sexuality that could not be acknowledged in chopins time become important for people to study nowadays. in 1969, chopins novel began its hearty ascent into literary distinction. per seyersted, one of chopins biographers, published kate chopin: a critical biography and the complete works of kate chopin. seyersteds books help land the work of the late novelist on the literary map. they depict the complete range of chopins artistry, and bring to the burgeoning field of feminist literature a new champion in edna pontellier. kate chopin and the awakening have been the everlasting topics in literary discussions. for instance, in 1970s, experts such as per seyersted and peggy skaggs explored the relationship between the novel and american regionalism(local colorism), romanticism, realism 8 and naturalism, tracing elements of the awakening through the four different literary movements. since 1980s and 1990s, the range of the research has been widened as more and more theories from modernism to postmodernism are employed in the analysis of the novel. for example, from the perspective of narratology, patrick w. shaw explores the narrative structure of the novel and the ways in which chopin controls the readers vision in the article “shifting focus in kate chopins the awakening”, saying that chopin shows her skill in “the rhetoric and craft of fiction” through the devices she uses in “orchestrating the narrative so that the audience is distanced from ednas thought process for most of the novel, moving inside only when edna is about to die”(1990: 223). from the view of mythology, rosemary f. franklin uses the myth of psyche and eros to gloss ednas quest for selfhood in “the awakening and the failure of psyche”(1984); sandra m. gilbert explores the myth of aphrodite in connection with edna and then focuses upon the literary heritage kate chopin drew upon in writing the awakening in her “the second coming of aphrodite: kate chopins fantasy of desire”(1983); margaret mitsutani relates the myth of narcissus to ednas awakening in “kate chopins the awakening: the narcissism of edna pontellier”(1986). from the point of symbolism, carol a. maccurdy theorizes upon the importance of clothes as a symbol in the awakening in the article “the awakening: chopins metaphorical use of clothes”(1985); robert s. levine sees ednas sleep patterns as a rebellion against natural rhythms in “circadian rhythms and 9 rebellion in kate chopins the awakening”(1982); joyce dyer suggests that the juxtaposition of the moon or moonlight and sexual feelings symbolically anticipates the problems edna will have determining the relationship between sex and romance in “the awakening: a novel of beginnings”(1993). and to the interpretations of the theme of death at the end of the novel, marina l. roscher takes a jungian approach to ednas death by examining her psyche, suggesting that edna is immature in the article “the suicide of edna pontellier: an ambiguous ending?”(1984); helen v. emmit approaches ednas death from a male/female point of view, contending that because the world lacks a proper reflection of womens needs and desires, edna swims out to her death in search of that proper reflection and finds it in the sea at last in her “drowned in a willing sea: freedom and drowning in eliot, chopin, and drabble”(1993). showalter explores american womens writings including chopins via a feminist perspective in her articles such as “sisters choice”(1991); margit stange applies the concepts of motherhood via early feminist philosophy and asserts that self-ownership is ednas goal and ultimately leads to her suicide in “personal property: exchange value and the female self in the awakening”(1989); cody griggers gives a pretty straightforward analysis of the way setting influences edna pontelliers changes in “next stop paradise: an analysis of setting in the awakening”(1999); erin e. macdonald has a discussion of the attempts that edna makes to move towards a liberating androgyny and 10 the ultimate impossibility of a true freedom for her via that path in “necessarily vague: kate chopins gender-awakening”(1999); sarah klein applies a new trick to old text with the issues of the newly emerging “ecofeminism” in her article “kate chopins ecofeminism: a dialogue between the awakening li -dai lu explores ednas spiritual journey with reincarnation and nirvana of buddhism in “the awakened one: a buddhist reading of the awakening”(1998). in china, there are also some studies on kate chopin and her works since 1990s. for example, jinli and qin yaqing, in their articles in foreign literature(1995), introduce the life of kate chopin as a female writer and analyze the female images under her pen as repressed, awakened, rebellious ones. ourong argues that the image of the heroine is a perfect union of eve and aphrodite from the standpoint of myth-archetype criticism. lijin claims that the heroines speeches and activities embody emersons philosophical thinking transcendentalism. transcendentalism develops from the harmonious relationship between human and nature to the important combination of actions and ideas, and finally to the spiritual inclination of transcendentalists, which almost fits in with ednas experiences or the journey of her “awakening”. kate chopin tries to exhibit the subtle details of true human life, especially womens, through mimicking the novel writing style of zola and