8 - The Awakening as literary innovation: Chopin, Maupassant and the evolution of genre

Summary

“the artist must possess the courageous soul... The soul that dares and defies.” (946) / “Any literary succession is first of all a struggle, a destruction of old values and a reconstruction of old elements” Jurrii Tynyanov (1921) / Kate Chopin's well-documented descent into literary obscurity after the publication of The Awakening (1899) is most often attributed to her engagement with the taboo issues of female sexual desire and infidelity. Her marginalisation, however, may have been as much a result of her overt rejection of traditional literary form and blatant transgression of conventional genre boundaries. While reviews of Chopin's earlier collections of short stories, in particular Bayou Folk (1894), had focused on the 'quaintness', 'charm' and distinctly regional flavour of the writing and had positioned her firmly within the framework of local-colour fiction, The Awakening resisted such generic categorisation. The highly original style and voice that Chopin established in this impressionistic narrative, with its lyrical, sensuous prose, symbolism, unusual circular structure and its focus on the inner consciousness of its heroine, evidently unsettled the expectations of critics. Although C.L. Deyo, writing in the St Louis Post-Dispatch in May 1899, recognised Chopin's originality and innovation, observing that 'The work is more than unusual. It is unique', many interpreted the text as an 'aberration', a radical departure for a writer who had previously adhered to convention. Few critics actually attempted definitions of genre, their commentaries relying primarily on moral condemnation of the novel's controversial themes.