Thesis (M.A.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2004. / Thesis advisor: Robert Dunne. In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-55). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 52 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed September 29, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-77)

Thesis (M.A.)--Oregon State University, 2005. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-91). Also available online.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-60).

Kate Chopin’s stories including “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” “A Very Fine Fiddle” and “Azelie” are rich in subject-object relationships. Close text analysis helps explicate the power of these objects or things. A thing is animate and an object is not. The stockings, fiddle, and store objects are part of a transaction between things and people; what is an object to one character is a thing to another. Exploration of Victorian women and department stores illuminates how stockings overpower Mrs. Sommers. Research on share tenant life, violins’ value, and Louisiana mixed ancestry reveals how the fiddle enables Fifine and Cleophas to re-imagine their identities and cross social boundaries; similarly, “authentic woman” feminist theory highlights how objects affect Azelie’s agency. Functioning atypically, stockings, a fiddle, and store items become things and not just objects. Things invite Chopin’s characters to embrace uncertainty. We are in things and things are in us. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Kate Chopin, 1851-1904, gained national fame when her local color stories became published in acclaimed magazines such as Vogue and the Atlantic. Her novel, The Awakening (1899), however, criticized for its controversial content and its heroine, Edna Pontellier, whose ambiguous actions and final suicide were focus of the critical attention, received only negative reactions and silenced Chopin as a writer. Interpretations by feminists, realists, or culturalhistorians proved insufficient in their attempts to explain the dilemma of the heroine. Approached from an existentialist point of view, the novel seems to derive new meaning, but the few extant critical discussions remain either too superficial or too general in scope. A thorough explication of J.-P. Sartre's existentialism, in particular, however, would provide a fresh, insightful interpretation not only of The Awakening, but also of selected short stories that had critics equally torn when faced with the seemingly ambivalent decisions of their heroines.Following the literature review of Chapter I, Chapter II will provide background information on Sartrian existentialism while focusing on such terms as anguish, bad faith, and authenticity that are especially relevant for a better understanding of Chopin's works. How several of her short stories and The Awakening will derive new significance when approached from an existentialist perspective will be shown in Chapters III and IV, respectively, the interpretation mainly centering on the argument that the dilemmas of the heroines, formerly described as "female" or "romantic," are essentially "human" and derive universal, therefore existential significance. Finally, I will try to account for Kate Chopin's "existentialism" in Chapter V by not only taking a closer look at the social issues she was surrounded by, and also her personal life that was the foundation of her thinking, being expressed in ideas that would put her way beyond the "Zeitgeist" of her times. / Department of English

This paper examines the metaphoric structures that underlie Chopin's major novel, The Awakening, as well as those underlying selected short stories. Drawing on the modern theory of metaphor described by Mark Turner, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, the author argues that conceptual metaphors are the structural elements that underlie our experiences, thoughts, and words, and that their presence is revealed through our everyday language. Since these conceptual structures are representative of human thought and language, they are also present in literary texts, and specifically in Chopin's texts. Conceptual metaphors and the linguistic forms that result from them are so basic a part of our thinking that we automatically construct our utterances by means of them. Accordingly, conceptual metaphor mirrors human thought processes, as demonstrated by the way we describe our experiences.