Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 2000 Kate Chopin's Contribution to Realism and Naturalism: Reconsiderations of W. D. Howells, Maupassant, and Flaubert. Jean Ann Witherow Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Witherow, Jean Ann, "Kate Chopin's Contribution to Realism and Naturalism: Reconsiderations of W. D. Howells, Maupassant, and Flaubert." (2000). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7399. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7399 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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HOWELLS, MAUPASSANT, AND FLAUBERT A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Jean Ann Witherow B.A., Louisiana State University, 1994 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1997 December 2000 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9998718 Copyright 2000 by Witherow, Jean Ann All rights reserved. UMI___ ® UMI Microform 9998718 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ©Copyright 2000 Jean Ann Witherow All rights reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments My sincere and heartfelt thanks to Doctor James Babin for his kindness, encouragement, patience, valuable input, and positive reinforcement. This project would truly have been impossible without his help and support. Thanks also to my sons, John and Matt, for believing in me and encouraging me. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Acknowledgments................................................................................................................. iii Abstract................................................................................................................................... v Introduction ..............................................................................................................................1 1 The Historical Context of Literary Realism and Naturalism.............................. 25 2 Biographical Influences on Chopin’s Literary Career......................................... 44 3 Chopin Responds to American Realists: Departing from Determinism................................................................................ 70 4 Chopin’s Dialogic Engagement with Maupassant: Exploring the Female Consciousness.................................................................. 104 5 Chopin’s Re-vision of Flaubert: Similarities Illuminate Different Intentions ........................................................ 136 6 Chopin’s Internal Versus Flaubert’s External Perspective.................................174 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................202 Works Cited.........................................................................................................................211 Vita...................................................................................................................................... 223 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract No one has previously undertaken a detailed examination of Kate Chopin’s documented intertextuality with writers such as W.D. Howells, Hamlin Garland, Maupassant, and Flaubert. My purpose is to examine Chopin’s works in the context of writers with whom she interacts and so to reveal her impact on the development of literary realism and naturalism. My study reveals that, though her mature writing eliminates sentimentalism, she never abandons romance elements residual from her youth. Her typically subjective narrator removes narrative authority, intensifies our involvement with characters, and validates the marginalized voice. Darwin and the philosophers temper her Catholicism, yet she maintains a sense of the divine and perennial nature of the force of love. Her acknowledgement of the influence of other writers reveals her sense of continuity as a means of understanding our selves. In Chopin’s first novel, At Fault, she borrows a subplot of Howells’s A Modem Instance to respond to the idealism Howells inveighs against even as his novel upholds it. From Howells’s perspective, love as the basis for action is illusory and ideal. Chopin, understanding love as inherently human rather than as an ideal or abstract concept, critiques Howells’s notion that, lacking love, the ideal of marriage should be upheld. Appreciating Maupassant’s freedom of expression, Chopin departed from American models and responded instead to his stories. Richard Fusco reveals in detail how Chopin emulated Maupassant’s structures. Within those structures, she more V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. efficiently expresses the force of love in her stories. We can use Fusco’s schema to examine Chopin’s conscious dialogic engagement as she focuses not on Maupassant’s larger concerns with an uncaring bourgeoisie, but on narrower concerns, typically within the female consciousness. Chopin finally returns to the novel form with The Awakening, a reconsideration of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary experiences no awakening, retaining romantic misconceptions. Edna awakens to the need to escape temporal limitations. Chopin pleads for the romantic vision and the necessity of understanding one’s inner reality. Under the influence of these writers, Chopin demonstrates continuity, forms a link between French and American realism and naturalism, and contributes to the movement toward “soft” naturalism. vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction Old Natchitoches It wasn’t so very long ago, Tho’ I can’t remember and neither can you— A couple of hundred years or more When the moon was old and the town was new. O! the people and places that ne’er stand still! They’ve none of the wisdom that gathers riches, In the dreaming old town at the foot of the hill That is old as the moon and the world and as wise. (Dec. 1898,Miscellany 37) In becoming a mature artist, Kate Chopin was influenced by literary masters on both sides of the Atlantic. During her brief writing career (1889 to 1899), she responded deliberately to American writers Howells and Garland and French writers Maupassant and Flaubert. Unfortunately, The Awakening (1899), probably inspired by Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856), sparked controversy that ended her career and placed her in virtual obscurity until she was rediscovered by Daniel Rankin (1932), by Cyrille Amavon in France (1953), researched later by Larzer Ziff (1966), and boosted to canonical status by Per Seyersted (1969). Since that time, feminist writers