Kate Chopin: Writer Before Her Time
Sex and despair are the subjects most read in today's more modern society. This was not the case during Kate Chopin's career as a writer. Chopin was a color writer about life in Louisiana. The critics of her time condemned her novel, The Awakening, saying that it was immoral and poisonous. But more modern critics believe that "She exerts individuality and originality and, ultimately, speaks in a truly feminist voice" ( Le Marquand). Chopin's works, containing sexual themes and suicide, are shocking during the era in which they are written, but they have the opposite effect on today's more modern society. In 1969, Per Seyersted wrote "Kate Chopin was the first woman writer in America to accept sex with its profound repercussions as a legitimate subject for serious fiction" (Seyersted 63). Chopin's novel, The Awakening, deals with a sexual theme and brought about her fall from society. The protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is a married woman with two small children. Being awakened to her sexual desires, Edna turns to Robert Lebrun to fulfill her needs. Robert and Edna fall in love. Robert, seeing that the affair can only lead to disaster, leaves her. Although Edna is in love with Ro
in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. The only affection Edna gives to the children comes after she has sexual encounters with a lover. This is how she chooses to end her life. She makes this move with divorce and Robert on her mind and with little regard to the effect it will have on her 2children. Even though they are a part of her life, "they need not have thought they could possess her, body and soul" (Chopin 340). He throws the letters in the river from the bridge. and deals with sex even more unreservedly" that she never published it (Seyersted 62). Deciding to keep the letters, she puts a note on them addressed to her husband.
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Acceptance Essays
