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Kate Chopin |
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A HISTORICAL approach to Kate Chopin's work is useful not only in providing a background for the historical context of her fiction, which is principally concerned with the Creole and Cajun culture of late nineteenth-century Louisiana, but also in investigating Chopin's own connection to the local-color tradition with which her stories and sketches were originally linked. It should, however, be remembered that truly important writers do not usually provide neat illustrations of genres, but tend instead to modify and even transcend the genres in which they work.
Both a historical and a SOCIOLOGICAL approach are also helpful in clarifying the late nineteenth-century American culture in which she lived and worked, and thus in more clearly understanding why her work provoked the responses that it did. Likewise, given both her reliance upon and transformation in her fiction of circumstances from her own life, a BIOGRAPHICAL analysis of her work, if applied with care, may lead to stimulating inquiries.
Chopin was interested in the meticulous analysis and honest presentation of human personality in all of its motivations and longings, not just the traditionally sanctioned ones; thus, the PSYCHOLOGICAL consideration of her fiction is imperative. Needless to say, the dominant mode of approach to Chopin's work has been GENDER analysis: given the time and context of her rediscovery, and given especially her own chosen goal to tell the truth about woman's lives and feelings, it could hardly be otherwise. But, however great her sociological and historical significance may be, we should not lose sight of the fact that she is first and foremost an accomplished, important literary artist.
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