Feminist Literature
I was re-reading Dracula (for fairly self-explanatory reasons, I should think), and when I finished I was reading some analysis, and thus came upon a reference to "The Awakening". Now, we already read it in high school, but I thought it might be a fun time to give it another go. I have to admit that it didn't really go down any better the second time, for all my supposedly greater "maturity". I love Chopin's prose, and find her atmosphere tremendously evocative. But the thought of Edna as a model of feminine independence disgusts me. I don't understand why it is that when women break out of Victorian society, they have to become villains. Perhaps the point was that there was no place for Edna, that by definition of society she was lost and that same society transformed her into a villain; if so, Chopin wrote an effective horror novel.
Still, I found it a difficult book to understand. Granted, all of the Creole French suddenly came clear for me, but it really doesn't factor much into the novel. So I was looking around for some critical analysis, and came repeatedly across Ibsen's "A Doll's House". So I decided to go ahead and read that.
I must say that I was as delighted with Ibsen as I was lukewarm to Chopin. There is quite some room for depth in the script, and I would be thrilled to see a live production. I went ahead and looked up some criticism about it, too, and found it much more straightforward, and indeed, more effective. I suppose the Edna's dissatisfaction with her life is so much more abstract than Nora's, that it's hard to divine Edna's motivations. In contrast, Nora is a simple character, and her motivations are likewise simple. Her naivete makes her easy to understand, and if the audience might disagree with her final decision, we can understand the social forces that led her there. Not so, Edna.
I suppose it's anti-feminist to prefer a feminist work written by a man, but my conclusion must be, that if you're going to read one work of Victorian feminism, let it be Ibsen, not Chopin.
Still, I found it a difficult book to understand. Granted, all of the Creole French suddenly came clear for me, but it really doesn't factor much into the novel. So I was looking around for some critical analysis, and came repeatedly across Ibsen's "A Doll's House". So I decided to go ahead and read that.
I must say that I was as delighted with Ibsen as I was lukewarm to Chopin. There is quite some room for depth in the script, and I would be thrilled to see a live production. I went ahead and looked up some criticism about it, too, and found it much more straightforward, and indeed, more effective. I suppose the Edna's dissatisfaction with her life is so much more abstract than Nora's, that it's hard to divine Edna's motivations. In contrast, Nora is a simple character, and her motivations are likewise simple. Her naivete makes her easy to understand, and if the audience might disagree with her final decision, we can understand the social forces that led her there. Not so, Edna.
I suppose it's anti-feminist to prefer a feminist work written by a man, but my conclusion must be, that if you're going to read one work of Victorian feminism, let it be Ibsen, not Chopin.