"Abysses of solitude": Acting naturally in Vogue and The Awakening

Such a conclusion shocked Chopin's contemporaries, and in my teaching experience, it can still give a classroom a galvanizing jolt. But what remains shocking about Chopin's novel is not that the suicide of her protagonist contained a stifled threat to turn-of-the-century patriarchal culture. Such threats were routine, available even in fashion magazines. Rather than that, the denouement of Chopin's text is shocking mainly because it lays bare the subjective consequences of gender norms that were plainly visible at the time Chopin was writing-and which, to a great extent, are still visible today.

WORKS CITED

Chopin, Kate. 1969. The awakening. The complete works of Kate Chopin. Ed. Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge. Vol. 2. Louisiana State University Press. 879-1000. "Fillies on view." 1893. Illustration from Vogue 2.1 (July 1): 7, fig. 5. "Florence and Appleton." 1895. Cover illustration from Vogue 6.13 (September 25),

fig. 4.

Gilbert, Sandra M. 1987. The second coming of Aphrodite. In Kate Chopin: Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House. 89-114. Gilmore, Michael T. 1988. Revolt against nature: The problematic modernism of The Awakening. In New Essays on "The Awakening". Ed. Wendy Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 59-87.

"He almost thinks he will-ask her to dance!" 1895. Illustration from Vogue 5.16 (April 18): 245, fig. 3.

"Her first love." 1897. Cover illustration from Vogue 10.16 (October 14), fig. 6. Lacan, Jacques. 1977. The function and field of speech and language in psychoanaly

sis. In Ecrits:A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton. 30-113. "The light of a day that is dead." 1897. Illustration from Vogue 10.15 (October 7): 227, fig. 1

"My Rose by any other name ...." 1893. Illustration from Vogue 2.15 (Ocstober 5):

173, fig. 2

Papke, Mary E. 1990. Verging on the abyss: The social fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton. New York: Greenwood Press.

Showalter, Elaine. 1985. Feminist criticism in the wilderness. In The new feminist criticism: Essays on women, literature, and theory. Ed. Showalter. New York: Pantheon. 243-70.

1991. Sister's choice: Tradition and change in American women's writing. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Yeager, Patricia. 1993. "A language which nobody understood": Emancipatory strategies in The awakening. In The awakening: Complete, authoritative text with biographical and historical contexts, critical history, and essays from five contemporary critical perspectives. Ed. Nancy A. Walker. Boston: Bedford. 270-96. Ziff, Larzer. 1966. The American 1890s: Life and times of a lost generation. New York: Viking.

Harmon is assistant professor of English at Loyola University, Chicago. He is currently at work on a book-length study of style in high and popular American culture.

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