Beyond Gender: Sex, Class, and Ethnicity in Kate Chopin’s Short Stories
Title
Beyond Gender: Sex, Class, and Ethnicity in Kate Chopin’s Short StoriesAuthor(s)
Directors
Núñez-Puente, CarolinaDate
2022Center/Dept./Entity
Universidade da Coruña. Facultade de FiloloxíaDescription
Traballo fin de grao (UDC.FIL). Inglés: estudios lingüísticos y literarios. Curso 2021/2022Abstract
[Abstract] The object of study of this dissertation are three short stories by one of the most
representative writers of nineteenth-century American literature, Kate Chopin. The author is
specially appreciated by feminist literary critics for her exploration of the female identity in
her novel The Awakening (1899). This project aims to demonstrate that gender must be studied
alongside other analytic categories such as sex, class, and ethnicity through an analysis of the
selected stories: “At the ‘Cadian Ball” (1894), “The Storm” (1969), and “Désirée’s Baby”
(1893). In my studies, I also discuss the stories’ form and content—characters, settings,
descriptions, etc.—from an intersectional feminism perspective.
This project required the close reading of my object of study and the consultation of
specialized dictionaries—such as The Dictionary of Feminist Theory and Fifty Key Concepts
in Gender Studies—and academic works about intersectionality—e.g., Kimberlé Crenshaw’s
“Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of
Color”. I also read several publications about Chopin’s literary production, as the works of
Holtman, Jeffers, and Toth, the latter being recommended by Kate Chopin International
Society. Some of the key concepts addressed in the below pages belong to the fields of
feminism and critical theory like gender, class, ethnicity, and intersectionality. The latter term
is particularly relevant because it offers the possibility to remove the local color label from
Chopin’s works (Holtman). Therefore, analyzing the stories from an intersectional feminism
approach allows the reader to understand the way society pressures individuals to stay within
determined identity categories, and so interferes with class mobility and social change.
My dissertation is divided in two parts. In the first part, I explain the theoretical
framework of this project. 1.1 consists of an explanation of the concepts of gender, sex, class,
race, and ethnicity; it includes a summary of their academic history, as well as brief accounts
of some terminological debates around them. 1.2 reviews the concept of intersectionality and
its application to feminist theory. The second part of this project applies the reviewed
theoretical concepts to the analysis of “At the ‘Cadian Ball”, “The Storm”, and “Désirée’s
Baby”. Each story takes one subsection of this part. The B.A. thesis ends with a conclusion,
which gathers some of its key ideas in order to ratify the initial hypothesis: expanding upon
previous feminist work, to challenge the traditional classification of Chopin’s short fiction as
local color writing through an intersectional feminism perspective. It must be noted that,
although the stories are not revolutionary in terms of defying social norms, they do question
the analytical categories of gender, class, and ethnicity, as well as explore their boundaries.
Keywords
Chopin, Kate
American literature
19º siglo
Female identity
Gender
Sex
Class
Race
Ethnicity;
American literature
19º siglo
Female identity
Gender
Sex
Class
Race
Ethnicity;
Rights
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