Kate Chopin

A vivid portrait of the author of The Awakening on the 100th anniversary of its publication.

Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century american writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. When her most famous story, The Awakening, was first published in 1899, it stunned readers with its frank portrayal of the inner word of Edna Pontellier, and its daring criticisms of the limits of marriage and motherhood. The subtle beauty of her writing was contrasted with her unwomanly and sordid subject-matter: Edna's rejection of her domestic role, and her passionate quest for spiritual, sexual, and artistic freedom. From her first stories, Chopin was interested in independent characters who challenged convention. This selection, freshly edited from the first printing of each text, enables readers to follow her unfolding career as she experimented with a broad range of writing, from tales for children to decadent fin-de siecle sketches. The Awakening is set alongside thirty-two short stories, illustrating the spectrum of the fiction from her first published stories to her 1898 secret masterpiece, "The Storm."

Damned upon publication for engaging with the taboo issues of female sexuality and infidelity, Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) is now hailed as a key early feminist text and an important work of American literature.This sourcebook combines accessible commentary with reprinted documents to provide the ideal introduction to this widely debated novel. The editors offer:* extensive coverage of the contexts to the work, including biographical information on Chopin and the social and historical backgrounds to her writing* an outline of the critical reception of the novel from the early reviews to contemporary debates, and extracts from influential essays* selected chapters of the original text, reproduced with extensive commentary on key issues and suggestions on links with contextual and critical materials* a guide to further reading, ideal for extended independent study.Providing all the tools for engaged, informed individual analysis of the text, this sourcebook will greatly enrich any reading of The Awakening . It is an essential starting point for students of American literature and women's writing, or for anyone fascinated by Chopin's controversial work.

A study of how women writers found ways to sound an authoritative voice in the male-dominated world.

Examining turn-of-the-centry American women's fiction, the author argues that this writing played a crucial role in the production of a national fantasy of a unified American identity in the face of racial, regional, ethnic and sexual divisions.

In the late nineteenth century, the stereotype of the black male as sexual beast functioned for white supremacists as an externalized symbol of social chaos against which all whites would unite for the purpose of national renewal. The emergence of this stereotype in American culture and literature during and after Reconstruction was related to the growth of white-on-black violence, as white lynch mobs acted in "defense" of white womanhood, the white family, and white nationalism. In Writing a Red Record Sandra Gunning investigates American literary encounters with the conditions, processes, and consequences of such violence through the representation of not just the black rapist stereotype, but of other crucial stereotypes in mediating moments of white social crisis: "lascivious" black womanhood; avenging white masculinity; and passive white femininity. Gunning argues that these figures together signify the tangle of race and gender representation emerging from turn-of-the-century American literature. The book brings together Charles W. Chestnutt, Kate Chopin, Thomas Dixon, David Bryant Fulton, Pauline Hopkins, Mark Twain, and Ida B. Wells: famous, infamous, or long-neglected figures who produced novels, essays, stories, and pamphlets in the volatile period of the 1890s through the early 1900s, and who contributed to the continual renegotiation and redefinition of the terms and boundaries of a national dialogue on racial violence.

Kate Chopin has emerged as one of the most significant American writers of the nineteenth century. Though her works typically reflect the language and customs of Louisiana, they also make universal comments about women, men, and human relationships. The last thirty years have witnessed heightened scholarly interest in her writings. This bibliography surveys the vast amount of scholarship published on Chopin between 1976 and 1998, with some coverage of 1999. Included are annotated entries for books, articles, and dissertations, along with extensive indexes. The volume also provides a biographical sketch, a review of the evolution of trends in Chopin scholarship, and a textual history.