Realism & Feminist Literary Movements

Kate Chopin was part of two major literary movements over the span of her writing career since most of her novels and short stories were published between the 1890s and late 19th century. First, she belonged to the Literary Realism Movement because her writings centered around realistic feelings and the isolation felt by her character's when exploring their inner desires. Realism authors are defined as viewing "structure and problems of governing power as debatable and reformable". Chopin's characters Edna and Calixta definitely saw their husbands as the governing power over their independence. These powers were debated by their actions taken to pursue their personal desires. Chopin's writings were also significantly influential in the feminist movement that began in the late 19th century. In her writings "The Storm" and The Awakening, Chopin develops female characters with strong sexual desires and who rebel against the patriarchal culture that was present in the late 1800s. Chopin pushed the conceptions of female behavior and desires by allowing her characters to explore beyond the conformities set for them at the time. Jarlath Killeen explains Chopin's involvement in both literary movements in her following statement: "The claim to self-ownership in The Awakening is a pathetic delusion from which Edna must indeed finally awaken: she must become either Adele Ratignolle or Mademoiselle Reisz in this world of stark realism where the world and the various cultural, social, patriarchal and even feminine natural values are always already in control of the self". These values were often tested by Chopin in her writings. I believe her writings involving Realism and Feminism themes aided in encouraging the women's rights movement that would eventually allow women to be seen as a gender to be valued.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 12: American Realists and Naturalists. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Donald Pizer, Newcomb College, Tulane University and Earl N. Harbert, Northeastern University. The Gale Group, 1982. pp. 59-71.

Killeen, Jarlath. "Mother and Child: Realism, Maternity, and Catholicism in Kate Chopin's The Awakening." Religion & the Arts 7.4 (2003): 413-438.

Ramos, Peter. "Unbearable Realism; Freedom, Ethics and Identity in "The Awakening"." College Literature 37.4 (2010): 145-165.