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The Gothic in Kate Chopin

  • Aparecido Donizete Rossi
Chapter
Part of the American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century book series (ALTC)

Abstract

Since 1932, only a few critics have attempted to address the presence of the Gothic in Kate Chopin’s fiction, beginning with Daniel Rankin, who wrote that The Awakening was a “curious morbid pathos of mental dissection” (140) and “morbid in theme” (175). The recurrence of the word “morbid” in Rankin’s appraisals is curious, for it can also be found in a review contemporary to the publication of the novel: “unhealthily introspective and morbid” (12), proclaimed The Los Angeles Sunday Times on June 25, 1899. It may be difficult for modern readers to find gloomy or gruesome excerpts in Chopin’s masterpiece, though it was understood as “diseased” or “unhealthy” by the patterns of the fin de siècle Western society.

Keywords

Life Experience Baton Rouge Short Story Complete Work Fictive World 
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© Heather Ostman and Kate O’Donoghue 2015

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  • Aparecido Donizete Rossi

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