Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2-2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
English
Advisor
Morris Dickstein
Subject Categories
American Literature | English Language and Literature | Literature in English, North America
Keywords
Kate Chopin, Multimedia, Ruth Stuart
Abstract
My dissertation uses the works and lives of two popular late-nineteenth-century writers, Ruth McEnery Stuart and Kate Chopin, as a heuristic to solve the literary mystery of how "fiction by women" became "women's fiction." While feminist scholars resuscitated Chopin, Stuart remains ignored. The realism and irony of Chopin's novel The Awakening resonate with modern readers, but the sentimental aspects of Stuart's work and Chopin's short fiction remain problematic. The aesthetic movements of realism and naturalism influenced literary taste to the extent that sentimentalism is anathema to contemporary critics. I participate in recent scholarship that explores how sentimentalism has been used by countless writers in all eras as a literary device. I posit that Chopin and Stuart use sentimental devices to remain commercially successful in a difficult publishing market and to introduce transgressive elements in their fiction that broaden realism and naturalism's often narrow and denigrating portrayals of mothers.
Recommended Citation
O'Donoghue, Kathryn Erin, "Loosening the Critical Corset: New Approaches to the Short Fiction of Kate Chopin and Ruth Stuart" (2015). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/601