On Kate Chopin’s Deconstruction In The Awakening

Kate Chopin is one of the brilliant and influential women writers in the nineteenth century in American literary cannon. In the early1890s, she published two groups of short stories, Bayou Folk and A Night in Achadie, which makes her become one of the outstanding local colorists. In1899, Kate Chopin published her masterpiece, The Awakening. This novel tells the story of an intelligent, sensitive and brave woman who pursues a kind of independent life after going through the spiritual awakening. Thanks to Chopin’s avant-garde and creative thoughts, this novel is incredibly fascinating. This thesis mainly tries to analyze Kate Chopin’s deconstructive strategies in The Awakening. The writer hopes it can provide the readers with a better understanding of the artistic values in this novel through the analysis of Kate Chopin’s deconstructive thoughts.Firstly, Kate Chopin’s deconstructive thoughts have been fully explored by subverting the three binary oppositions, namely, morality/sexuality, reason/emotion and man/woman. According to the deconstructive theory, because of people’s pursuit of the logocentrism, the two poles in the binary opposition have always been in an unequal and hierarchal order. In the binary opposition, the former is in a central place, and the latter is in a marginal and neglected position. These three binary oppositions are especially striking in Victorian period when the patriarchal culture and religion play an important role in people’s life. People are conservative and men are regarded as more powerful than the women. Therefore, the morality, reason and man are in the dominating position, while the sexuality, emotion and woman are in a marginal place. In this book, Chopin boldly describes Edna’s love affair and her determined pursuit of the sexual freedom. Kate Chopin gives importance to the sexuality and emotion and puts them in the central place. In addition, in the patriarchal culture, man is always superior to woman; however, the androgynous features in the heroine and the male characters indicate that Kate Chopin attempts to deconstruct the binary opposition between man and woman. Chopin’s subversion of these three binary oppositions has enabled the readers to see a kind of new woman image.Then Kate Chopin’s efforts to subvert the conventional femininity have been analyzed in order to explore her deconstructive strategies. The writer sets about analyzing the three female images with a view to show Chopin’s subversion of the conventional femininity. Two female characters Edna and Reisz can serve as the good examples for subverting the mother woman. At last, the writer believes that Kate Chopin attempts to break those stereotyped and passive woman images in the tradition through the deconstruction of the three binary oppositions and the conventional femininity. Meanwhile, she makes great efforts to construct a new woman image that is bold enough to pursue independence and liberty.