(48) Women Fiction Writers: Issues, Forms, and Reception.
(K. Chopin, W. Cather, Z. N.Hurston, and S. O. Jewett).
R e a l i s m a n d N a t u r a l i s m
[See "Background for Topics 40 and 48..."]
K a t e C h o p i n ( 1 8 5 1 – 1 9 0 4 )
L i f e :
- b. Katherine O’Flaherty in a St. Louis family of high social status
- the family women pious Cath. x but: herself smoked in society and walked about without company, daring acts for her time
- married a Creole businessman >> New Orleans (LA) = the centre of the Creole culture
- her husband failed as a businessman, and died suddenly >> St. Louis, remained alone to raise her children, and earned her living by writing
W o r k :
< her reading of E. Zola and G. de Maupassant, admired W. Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
< her own experience of the LA life
- author of 3 novels, over 150 short stories and sketches, poetry, and criticism
- portrayals of the Creole and Cajun life
S h o r t S t o r i e s :
- brief, almost anecdotal x but: fresh and sincere
Bayou Folk (1894): won her reputation as a leading local-colourist of the LA rural life
A Night in Acadie (1897): cemented her reputation
N o v e l s :
At Fault (1890): her 1st novel, publ. on her own expense
Unknown: her 2nd novel failed, and she destroyed it
The Awakening:
- examines the ‘new woman’s’ psychological and sexual coming to consciousness and demanding social, economic, and political equality
- contrasts the friendly, open, society loving, and articulate Creoles (Leonce, Robert) x the cold, dignified, distanced, and reserved Eur. (Edna, her father)
=> celebrates a woman’s independence, and finds the breaking of social rules an inevitable result
- found a negative response (as W. Whitman’s Leaves of Grass half a c. earlier) x but: rediscovered by the feminists in 1960s
P o e t r y :
- themes of strong individual women facing the gender prejudice obstacles
W i l l a C a t h e r ( 1 8 7 3 – 1 9 4 7 )
L i f e :
- b. in VA x but: moved to the agricultural NE > a deeply rooted regionalism
- worked as a NY magazine ed., journalist, and teacher
- became a full time writer (1912)
W o r k :
- wrote novels, short stories, and poetry
< S. O. Jewett
< drew on her own childhood experience in NE
- portrayed the region and the life
- criticised the materialist society
- criticised the unjust position of women in the Am. society: a topical feminism in her women characters trying to find themselves, their own lives, and independence
- portrayed the aspirations of young men and women in the frontier conditions: defeat and betrayal x hope and will
- analysed one’s day dreams and the result of these dreams in courage: her planters in the wilderness preserving their virtues and moral strength
- emphasises the role of the past and the relig. faith – see her Death Comes for the Archbishop
Alexander’s Bridge (1912): her 1st novel
O, Pioneers! (1913)
Song of the Lark (1915)
My Ántonia (1918):
- the wilderness x planter settlements; immigrant families x native b. Am.; weak and irresolute men x strong and energetic women
- a sentimental idealisation of the past
- a loving attachment to nature: the role of the sun, seasons, etc.
- Á.: an ambivalent character = very masculine in the way of achieving what she wants x very feminine in the nature of her achievement (a husband and large family)
=> a scandal: strong-willed women punished in the earlier lit. x but: Á. ends up happy
A Lost Lady (1923) and The Professor’s House (1925): written after she recovered from her breakdown after the woman she loved married
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927): conc. with a Rom. Cath. missionary in the NM frontier areas
Z o r a N e a l e H u r s t o n
[see H. under ‘46 HR’]
S a r a h O r n e J e w e t t ( 1 8 4 9 – 1 9 0 9 )
L i f e :
- b. and died in a ME coastal town > a deeply rooted local colour realism and regionalism
- educated by reading in her father’s library and by ‘reading’ the lives of people on the buggy rounds to rural patients of her father-physician
- connected with W. D. Howells and the Atlantic Monthly he ed.
- publ. in the country’s best magazines, wrote more than 20 vol. of short stories, and enjoyed a large audience in her day
W o r k :
< H. B. Stowe’s New En. local colour novel The Pearl of Orr’s Island
< G. Flaubert and E. Zola’s realism and naturalism
- wrote short stories, sketches, and poetry
- realistic / naturalistic portrayals of the New En. country life
- a realistic use of settings, people, speech patterns, and modes of life
- her own experience of the shift from a maritime economic system to the industrial Am.: lives of people shaped both by natural and social conditions
- no rustic idylls about a perfect place and time x but: a celebration of the modest pleasures and virtues of the rural life
Deephaven (1877): her 1st coll. of stories
A Country Doctor (1884):
- an expression of love to her father
- a celebration of the competence and independence of the F protagonist
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896):
- a loosely structured series of sketches x but: unified by setting and theme
- develops character rather than plot
- preserves a disappearing way of life and offers a study of the effects of isolation and hardship of the life in the decaying fishing villages along the ME coast
Literature
Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. London: Penguin, 1991.
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1994.
McQuade, Donald, gen.ed. The Harper American Literature. New York: Harper & Collins, 1996.
Ruland, Richard, Malcolm Bradbury. Od puritanismu k postmodernismu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1997.
Vančura, Zdeněk, ed. Slovník spisovatelů: Spojené státy americké. Praha: Odeon, 1979.
Other Sources
Flajšar, Jiří. Semináře: Americká literatura 2. ZS 2004/05.