Kate Chopin’in Kısa Öykülerinde Yeni Bir “Ben”in ve “Kimlik”in Doğuşu

19. yüzyılın sonuna doğru Amerika’da sosyal eşitsizlik ve ekonomik zorlukların etkisinde kalan yazılar gündeme taşınır. Bu eserler sosyal protestolar içerir. Irk ayrımıve cinsler arasıeşitsizlikler Kate Chopin gibi Güneyli yazarların eserlerinde ele alınmıştır. “Uyanış” adlıromanıile ünlenen Amerikalıyazar Kate Chopin yazdığıöyküler ve gerçekliği savunan denemelerle gerçekçi yazının savaşımınısürdürmüş; bütün kadınların cinsel özgürlüğü ve hayatıvardır diyerek yaşadığıdönemde feminizmin edebiyattaki en önemli temsilcilerinden biri olmuştur. Kendi özgün biçemini geliştiren Chopin öykülerinde ataerkil toplumun kadına biçtiği rolü yadsımış, öznelliklerine sahip olamamışve seslerini duyuramamışkadınların egemen kültür tarafından dışlanışlarınıve nasıl temsil edildiklerini simgeleyen kadın tipleri yaratmıştır. Gerçek doğasınıtanımaya çıkan bu kadın karakterler “ben kimim?” sorusunu soran ve bağımsızlığınıkazanma sürecinde geleneksel rollerinden sıyrılarak benliğin romantik ve idealist yönü ile duyumsal tatların tümüne düşkün hedonist ve gerçekçi yönünü yansıtırlar. Bu çalışmanın amacıbaskılananın karşıkoyduğu bu öykülerde egemen kültürle çeşitli sorunlarıolan kadın kahramanların benlik arayışlarıve üstlendikleri geleneksel rollerden sıyrılma mücadelelerini vurgulamaktır.

It was a common belief of 19th century Victorian society that unrestrained sex was a danger to the social order, as it was supposed to threaten the mental health and procreative capacity of human being. The sexual desires of women were increasingly regarded as inappropriate and unnatural and were denied. In other words, sexual desires and passion hardly existed for most of the 19th century American literary heroines. In contrast to this general tendency, Kate Chopin repeatedly deals with tabooing subject of women’s sexual urge and sensual experiences. Although Chopin matured in a traditional, southern, upperclass society, which greatly repressed women, her personal desire for autonomy emerged in conflicting emotions throughout her life. She manifested these contradictions in her personal life and her writing. Throughout Chopin’s life, beginning with her childhood in Saint Louis and progressing to her experience as a wife, a mother and finally a writer, she maintained an independent spirit; yet, she always struggled with the repression she felt as a Victorian female. This paradox shaped her literature as she progressed as an autonomous woman. Famous for her novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin has always been underestimated as an author of short stories many of which nearly excel her so-called “master piece”. Not only The Awakening reveals her close examination of female sexuality but also several of her short stories challenge cultural assumptions about the role of sex in a woman’s life: Kate Chopin’s protagonists commit adultery, renounce sex, or ever turn their affections towards another woman respectively. In American Literature, because of their economy, Chopin’s short stories can be considered to be more successful than her novel as she uses fewer words to express the same theme. She was known as an author with strong views about woman, sex and marriage- views that were well in advance of her times and challenged the prejudices and sexism of her society. Love and passion, marriage and independence, freedom and restraint-these are themes of her work distinctively realized in story after story. When Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening announces “I would give up the unessential; I would give y-my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” Chopin, 2004; 80 , she is addressing the crucial issues for many of Kate Chopin’s women- the winning of a self, the keeping of it. So do the Chopin women differ from the women of sentimental fiction. In sum, through her stories, Kate Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing “the other”, the woman, with an individual identity and a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind gives voice. Her writing challenged the American literary tradition by her bold expression of woman’s longing for sexual and personal freedom in a way that was previously unknown. The aim of this study is to present the limitations on women in the traditional role of wife in conventional marriage and the narrow confinement of and the limited range of possibilities for self-fulfillment for women in society through the characters of Chopin’s daring stories