Moralities Behind Narrative Strategies In Chopin’s Stories On Widowhood

Kate Chopin is the representative writer of feminist literature, while her stories on widowhood are believed to be conservative. This thesis aims at exploring reasons behind the conservation. Is it author’s true attitude or narrative strategy of feminism?This thesis will mainly focus on Chopin’s five stories on widowhood and they are“Madame Celestin’s Divorce”, “A Lady of Bayou St. John”, “The Story of an Hour”,“Madame Martel’s Christmas Eve” and “The Locket”. Based on Intertextuality,Narratology as well as Feminism, narrative strategies of characterization, setting and emplotment of the five stories will be discussed to explore moral flattery and moral circumvention behind, which embody feminism subtly. Chapter one introduces Chopin’s life, previous research on her works home and abroad, synopsis of the five stories as well as significance, theory and structure of the thesis. Chapter two focuses on discussing narrative strategies of characterization to explore moral ends behind. Chapter three analyzes narrative strategies of setting including nature outside and room inside,which lead to particular symbolic and moral meanings. What’s more, autobiographic elements in stories offer realistic reason for moral ends behind. Chapter four discusses widows’ awakening and unexpected ends of the stories. Those conservative ends reveal suffering of the widows further. Restricted by social morality, heroines had to behave themselves as typical widows in mourning against their true will in order to cater to social morality, or in other words to achieve the aim of moral flattery. Besides, there was bold and direct narration on women’s awakening in the stories which wasn’t suitable with defined women image then, thus conservative narration related with widows’ awakening was created to avoid moral blame, or in other words to achieve the aim of moral circumvention. Moral flattery and moral circumvention bring about ironic effect, which uncovers suffering of widows and reflects Chopin’s feminist care.