Tragic Elements and Discourse-Time in “The Story of an Hour”
Explicator, cilt.78, sa.3-4, ss.147-152, 2020 (AHCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 78 Sayı: 3-4
- Basım Tarihi: 2020
- Doi Numarası: 10.1080/00144940.2020.1844121
- Dergi Adı: Explicator
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, Humanities Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.147-152
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Anagnorisis, peripeteia, catastrophe, Kate Chopin, stylistics
- Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır
Özet
Narrating a woman’s brief emancipation from the restricting forces of marital
roles and gender bias in a much insightful portrayal of epiphany, “The Story
of an Hour” (1894) has mostly been read as a preliminary feminist manifesto
even though Kate Chopin never described herself as a feminist (Cahill xiii;
Fox-Genovese 2). Still, she believed in the power of womanhood, and her ideas
defied the norms of her society. Chopin scholars have already discussed in
detail how radical it was back in her time to be portraying, without any repri-
mand, characters like Louise Mallard (Beer, Kate Chopin 42; Jamil 216; Toth
10; Walker, ‘A Critical History’ 142). Chopin herself was aware of that. She
was already benefiting from Vogue magazine’s unorthodox publication policies
(Walker, ‘Local Color’ 181), but she knew very well that “[t]here were limits to
what editors would publish, and what audiences would accept” (Toth 10). For
that reason, she “worked much harder at her craft … wrote and rewrote,
thought and rethought” (Toth xxi) in order to accommodate the editorial and
critical tastes and prejudices without compromising too much on what she had
to say. In other words, contrary to the opinions that she lacked stylistic mas-
tery (Bloom 1–2), Chopin became an “expert in her manipulation of both
form and language so as to position herself to write about issues … which
were often controversial” (Beer, ‘Introduction’ 1).