The Role Of Naturalism In Kate Chopin's The Awakening

In only two-years of her writing career, Kate Chopin made quite a splash in the literary world. In an era where writers tended towards writing with “strict objective Realism and deterministic Naturalism,” Edna broke the mold by writing with a romantic sense of Naturalism, contributing to the “evolution toward a softening of Naturalism in the 20th century” (Witherow 87). This soft, romantic naturalism contributed greatly to the tone of The Awakening, which many critics such as Jean Witherow believe to be as a response to French novelist, Gustave Flaubert’s debut novel, Madam Bovary (87). While Larzer Ziff argues that in writing The Awakening, Chopin reproduced the fictional world with “no specific intent to shock or make a point,” (Toth 297) she did indeed shock readers and critics alike, leaving her reputation as a writer in the dust. Themes such as “sexual realism . . .. Ironic denouement and the epistolary technique," (Bonner xii) seem to

A novella that was once disregarded and “condemned for delving into taboo issues such as adultery and suicide,” (Lifson) reentered the spotlight. It is debated that part of the reason Chopin’s work was so controversial in her day was because it was written for a French audience. She studied the works of the French Realists in the original French and specifically the work of Maupassant, of whom she translated eight short stories (Witherhow 87). Thomas Bonner Jr. suggests that those translations helped Chopin develop her own style and voice, mature beyond her culture and time period. There are whole essays written on the influence of French authors, critics and translations on Chopin’s work, but it is important to note that she indeed found her own voice and allowed it to be heard, even though it took a few decades for her audience to come