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 ASSIGNMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2018-2019)
B.E.G.E.-108
Reading the Novel
Disclaimer/Special Note: These are just the sample of the Answers/Solutions to some of the Questions given in the

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Assignments. These Sample Answers/Solutions are prepared by Private Teacher/Tutors/Authors for the help and guidance
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As these solutions and answers are prepared by the private Teacher/Tutor so the chances of error or mistake cannot be

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denied. Any Omission or Error is highly regretted though every care has been taken while preparing these Sample

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Answers/Solutions. Please consult your own Teacher/Tutor before you prepare a Particular Answer and for up-to-date

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and exact information, data and solution. Student should must read and refer the official study material provided by the
university.

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Answer all questions.

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Q. 1. Write short notes on any two:

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(i) Origins of the English Novel.

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Ans. Origins and Rise of the Novel: Western traditions of the modern novel reach back into the field of verse

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epics, though again not in an unbroken tradition. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (1300-1000 BC), Indian epics

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such as the Ramayana (400 BC and 200 AD) and Mahabharata (4th century BC) were as unknown in early

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modern Europe as the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beowulf (c. 750-1000 rediscovered in the late 18th and early 19th centuries).

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Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (9th or 8th century BC), Vergil’s Aeneid (29-19 BC) were read by Western scholars

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since the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 18th century, modern French prose translations brought Homer to a

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wider public, who accepted them as forerunners of the modern novel.

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The word roman or romance had become a stable generic term by the beginning of the 13th century, as in the

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Roman de la Rose (c. 1230), famous today in English through Geoffrey Chaucer’s late 14th-century translation. The

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term linked fictions back to the histories that had appeared in the Romance language of 11th and 12th-century southern
France. The central subject matter was initially derived from Roman and Greek historians. Chaucer’s Troilus and

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Criseyde (1380-87) is a late example of this European fashion.

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The term novel refers back to the production of short stories that remained part of a European oral culture of

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storytelling into the late 19th century. Fairy tales, jokes, little funny stories designed to make a point in a conversation,

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the exemplum a priest would insert in a sermon belong into this tradition.
The early modern genre conflict between “novels” and “romances” can be traced back to the 14th-century

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cycles.
LITERARY TRENDS IN 18TH CENTURY ENGLAND
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The 18 century is considered by most scholars of the English novel to have been the century of the novel’s
invention or “rise,” a phrase popularised by Ian Watt’s pioneering study in literary sociology, The Rise of the Novel
(1957).
Women (and it was mostly women) began writing novels of sexual scandal and intrigue.
Around 1740, England’s taste for scandal decreased and a desire to reform morals and manners took hold.
Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (English, 1740), is often seen as the first novel to embody this new social trend.
At the same time, the larger “social” novel also appeared. Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a
Foundling (English, 1749), is the first major example of this type of novel in which a central character is used to
comment on the major social issues of the day and to explain the social and political networks of society. So, rather
than understand Tom in the same depth that we do Pamela, we understand Tom in relation to his surroundings.

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Fielding claimed that he was inventing “a new species of writing” in his novel, the “comic-epic in prose.” Interestingly,
he did not see himself as a novel writer.
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Finally, at the end of the century, the Gothic novel arose in response to several 18 century strands of thought,
most notably, sensibility and rationalism, as well as political events such as the American and French Revolutions.
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Jane Austen, oftentimes considered the bridge between the 18 century novel and the 19 century novel, wrote
a hilarious spoof of the Gothic entitled Northanger Abbey.
The changing landscape of Britain brought about by the steam engine has two major outcomes: the boom of
industrialism with the expansion of the city.
This abrupt change is revealed by the change of meaning in five key words: industry (once meaning “creativity”),
democracy (once disparagingly used as “mob rule”), class (from now also used with a social connotation), art (once
just meaning “craft”), culture (once only belonging to farming).

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But the poor condition of workers, the new class-conflicts and the pollution of the environment causes a reaction
to urbanism and industrialisation prompting poets to rediscover the beauty and value of nature. Mother earth is seen

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as the only source of wisdom, the only solution to the ugliness caused by machines.
In retrospect, we now look back to Jane Austen, who wrote novels about the life of the landed gentry, seen from

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a woman’s point of view and wryly focused on practical social issues, especially marriage and choosing the right

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partner in life, with love being above all else. Her most important and popular novel, Pride and Prejudice, would set the

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model for all Romance Novels to follow. In her novels, Jane Austen brings to light the hardships women faced, who

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usually did not inherit money, could not work and where their only chance in life depended on the man they married.
She brought to light not only the difficulties women faced in her day, but also what was expected of men and of the

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careers they had to follow.

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LITERARY TRENDS IN 19TH CENTURY ENGLAND

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Prose, poetry and drama were written in English in the UK in the 1800s. The century was a period of great

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literary and social change and it is useful to consider the literature of the period in relation to the social and political

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issues of the time, which include the Industrial Revolution, and the expansion of the British Empire. With the accession
of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837, the literary period until her death in 1901, is also known as the Victorian era.

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The Victorian intellectual world was fascinated by both the Roman and Medieval periods. The first because those

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involved in expanding the British Empire saw themselves as the new Romans and the second because they wanted

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furniture and art to be free of the influence of the Renaissance.

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The novel was possibly the most popular genre of the 19 century. Early 19th century novels include those of
English writer Jane Austen who wrote novels of manners, often set in a social world set apart from the rest of

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England (often in a country house), and usually concerning the aristocracy and middle classes, but her characters

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increasingly reflect the wider range of her readership, which was increasingly female and middle class. Her style is

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one of irony and social satire.

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Perhaps the most obvious successors to Austen are Anthony Trollope (Barchester Chronicles, 1855) and English

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novelists Charlotte and Emily Brontë. The Brontës (whose sister Anne was another, less well-known, writer) produced

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novels that were at once in the world of Austen’s characters and yet were also influenced by Romanticism and the
gothic novel. Charlotte Brontë’s most famous novel, Jane Eyre (1847), can be seen as both a gothic novel, a romance,

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and as a book with a feminist message. Wuthering Heights (1847), by Emily Brontë, is a darker work than those of
Charlotte, and more gothic. Charlotte, Emily, and their brother, published under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and

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Acton Bell, in an attempt to be accepted by a literary establishment that was almost exclusively male. However, their
audience was largely female.
Novels on Social Problem
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While Austen and the Brontës concentrated upon romantic love, later 19 century prose fiction was to a great
extent concentrated upon the problems of English society. English writers Mrs Gaskell (Mary Barton, 1845-7, North
and South, 1855) and Charles Dickens wrote stories to highlight social injustice and iniquity.
The Gothic Novel
The gothic novel continued to be so popular that writers in other genres incorporated it into their works. For
example, English novelist Wilkie Collins wrote The Woman in White (1860), and Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle
wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). Both combine the genres of the gothic and detective fiction. The
gothic novel form continued to develop with Dracula (1897), by Irish writer Bram Stoker, which approaches sexual
allegory.

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Prominent Novelists of the Age
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe
during his time.
Famous novel titles include Waverley (1814), Guy Mannering (1815), Rob Roy ((1817)), The Heart of Midlothian
(1818) and Ivanhoe (1819).
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose realism, biting social commentary and masterful use of free indirect
speech, burlesque and irony have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in
English literature.
From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield
Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer.

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William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19 century. He was famous for his satirical
works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.

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Another famous work by him is The History of Henry Esmond (1852).

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Charles John Huffam Dickens, pen-name “Boz”, was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era.

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His famous novels include sketches by Boz (1936), The Pickwick Papers (1836), The Adventures of Oliver Twist
(1837-1839), Bleak House (1852), A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1860).

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Mary Anne (Mary Ann, Marian) Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English

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novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well
known for their realism and psychological insight.

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Her Novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), Felix
Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–72) and Daniel Deronda (1876).

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Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 to 11 January 1928), was an English author of the naturalist movement,

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although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such

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as his fascination with the supernatural. He regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for

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financial gain.

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He wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891),

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the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a “fallen woman” and was initially refused

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publication.
(iii) Plot and types of plots.
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Ans. PLOT: Plot concerns the organization of the main events of a work of fiction. Plot differs from story in that

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plot is concerned with how events are related, how they are structured and how they enact change in the major

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characters. Most plots will trace some process of change in which characters are caught up in a conflict that is

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eventually resolved. Plots may be fully integrated or “tightly knit,” or episodic in nature.

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According to Aristotle’s Poetics, a plot in literature is “the arrangement of incidents” that (ideally) each follow

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plausibly from the other. The plot is like the chalk outline that guides the painter’s brush. An example of the type of
plot which follows these sorts of lines is the linear plot of development to be discerned within the pages of a bildungsroman

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novel.
The concept of plot and the associated concept of construction of plot, emplotment, has of course developed
considerably since Aristotle made these insightful observations. The episodic narrative tradition which Aristotle indicates

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has systematically been subverted over the intervening years, to the extent that the concept of beginning, middle, end
are merely regarded as a conventional device when no other is to hand.
It is important to note here that Aristotle never differentiated between ‘plot’ and ‘story’. Edward Morgan Forster
in his Aspects of the Novel draws a distinction between the two and defines story as a “narrative of events arranged
in their time-sequence” while a “plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.” The important
word in describing plot is, thus, ‘causality’. For example, “the king died, and then the Queen died” is sequence of a
story while “The King died, the Queen died of grief too” is a plot.
The second assertion has established a link of cause between the two events. And this, the making of connections,
or designs, is the essence of storytelling.
Types of Plots
There may be many ways to order/sequence/arrange a plot which gives rise to different types of plots. According
to Hudson, a plot may be loose where the story is composed of a number of detached incidents with very little

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necessary or logical connection among themselves. For example, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe or W. M.
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair has loose plot.
The second type of plot is an organic plot where separate incidents are knitted together and form and integral
component of a definite plot-pattern.
Aristotle distinguished between a simple and complex plot so did Hudson. In a simple plot, only a single story is
told and in the complex plot multiple stories go hand in hand. Thus, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is said to have a simple
plot since its stories are not properly amalgamated while Dickens’s the Bleak House has a complex plot as all the
three threads of Esther Summerson’s story, the story of Lady Delock’s sin and the story of the great Chancery Suit
by Jarndyce V Jarndyce are dexterously linked together.
The American author of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel hawthorne of the 19th century identifies discusses four
types of plots: Tragic, comic, satiric or romantic according to the subject matter or content of the novel but leaves out

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other types of novels, for example, political, psychological, historical and crime novels.
Thus, typologies of either novels or plots have a limited relevance no one cover all. However, the discussion about

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the typologies helps us understand the construction of plots varies from one novel to another and finally in understanding
a novel.

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Q. 2. How would you analyse the two parallel plots that exist in the structure of A Tale of Two Cities?
Ans. THE TWO WORLDS OF A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Charles Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities”

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examines life in England and France in the time leading up to the French Revolution in 1789. In England, the society

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is healthy and good. In France, the society is dysfunctional, which leads up to the working class revolution.
In conclusion France did not get much out of the hard fought revolution, and England is still dominating Europe.

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That makes England the prime spot to live in during this time period. One day France will become a contender in
Europe but, England will still be on top.

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He describes them as similar countries in their hurry to punish and execute for the most petty of crimes. They are

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also similar in the idea of the countries being revolutionary infants, so to speak. He describes England as the more

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violent of the two countries, with far more crime and filth, while France is depicted more as a place of intense church

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corruption and injustice.
WOMEN IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

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From the start the urban women of Paris played a large role in the unfolding of the Revolution. Since they had the

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mouths to feed at home, any fluctuation in bread price affected them very deeply. And they were ready to riot about

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that. It was a mob of fishwives, led by the ex-courtesan Anne Theroigne de Mericourt, who brought the royal family

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to Paris on October 6th, having marched to Versailles en masse the day before, demanding that “the Baker” bring

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bread to the starving Parisian population. Women were active in the galleries of the National Assembly, always ready

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to plead their hunger and demand action.
The Struggle for Women’s Rights
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Women also fought to obtain some of the democratic blessings of the Revolution for themselves. In response to

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“Rights of Man and Citizen”, prominent woman of letters and abolitionist Olympe de Gouges wrote “Rights of
Woman and Citizen” in 1791—a document that called for the same suffrage, property and civil rights to pertain to

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women as to men. Simultaneously, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English radical who would be the mother of Mary Shelley,
author of Frankenstein, wrote the Vindication of the Rights of Women. It was a work so far ahead of its time in
demanding universal suffrage and common-law marriages, among other things, that it foreshadows the feminist

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movement of our century. Although these documents were to remain only ideals, women did make some small steps
forward. In 1790, the Dutch baroness Etta d’Palme won the right for women to file divorces. The Paris Commune
declared spousal abuse a crime.
Women in the Army
When war broke out, many patriotic women were eager to take up arms to fight for their country. The “Amazons”,
a Parisian militia, begged the National Assembly that they could “fight with weapons other than a needle and spindle.”
The Rameau sisters joined the war effort in men’s clothing, distinguishing themselves in battle for their bravery and
competence. But in late 1792, women were officially banned from joining the army, though France was in desperate
need of soldiers.

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Women’s Clubs in Revolutionary Paris
This did not stop Parisian women from taking an active, an sometimes violent, part in national affairs. Women’s
clubs were founded, the first being Etta d’Palme’s Friends of Truth club. There revolutionary ideals were discussed
and several feministic concepts were born. The most radical of these clubs was the Revolutionary Republic Women
(the RRW) headed by actress Claire Lacombe and chocolate-maker Pauline Leon. These women focussed not only
on getting bread for themselves and their neighbors, but also in expanding literacy and obtaining female suffrage and
right to bear arms. The RRW allied itself with the Enrag the most radical left-wing party headed by the “red priest”
Jacques Roux, and it was to a large point destroyed and its leaders jailed with the arrest of the Enrages.
THE HOME AND THE STREET
Home is a place where we get shelter, comfort, peace and severity while the streets are filled with possibilities of

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danger and insecurity. The two kinds of environment have been clearly distinguished in A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens
associates Lucie and England with “home” which symbolizes safety, security, order, comfort and above all family

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affection. Home is a inner world which provides refuse against the world outside.

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For instance, Lucie becomes the ‘Golden thread’ for her father and links him to his past. She also provides love

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and peace to Darnay.
Dickens provides how the home in London gets beset by the forces outside. Lucie hears the footsteps and echoes

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in the house. According to John Gross, footsteps symbolize other which here means threat. When the four people

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come to rearrest Darnay Lucie hears “strange feet upon the stairs”. Here, Dickens points the precariousness and
frailty of the “home” as a refuse from outside “world”. Similarly, the limitation of home is also reflected in Darnay’s

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realisation that Lucie’s household at Soho ha kept him away from his responsibilities. This proves home in some way
as a false option to the world of events in which man and woman must participate.

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Moreover, Dickens shows the attitude of two kind of women towards home – Lucie and Mme. Defarge. Lucie

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is presented a loving face of household woman while Mme. Defarge is the opposite of her having no pity and

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compassion.

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Q. 3. Comment on the universality of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

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Ans. Universality: When Things Fall Apart was first published, Achebe announced that one of his purposes

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was to present a complex, dynamic society to a Western audience who perceived African society as primitive,

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simple, and backward. Unless Africans could tell their side of their story, Achebe believed that the African
experience would forever be “mistold,” even by such well-meaning authors as Joyce Cary in Mister Johnson.

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Cary worked in Nigeria as a colonial administrator and was sympathetic to the Nigerian people. Yet Achebe

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feels that Cary, along with other Western writers such as Joseph Conrad, misunderstood Africa. Many European

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writers have presented the continent as a dark place inhabited by people with impenetrable, primitive minds;

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Achebe considers this reductionist portrayal of Africa racist. He points to Conrad, who wrote against imperialism

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but reduced Africans to mysterious, animalistic and exotic “others.” In an interview published in 1994, Achebe

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explains that his anger about the inaccurate portrayal of African culture by white colonial writers does not
imply that students should not read works by Conrad or Cary. On the contrary, Achebe urges students to read

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such works in order to better understand the racism of the colonial era.
Achebe also kept in mind his own Nigerian people as an audience.

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Things Fall Apart is viewed as both specific and universal in character because while dealing with specific
character in a specific society at a specific point of time Achebe portrays the very predicament of man. The novel,
thus, transcends the boundaries of a single person or a specific society is applicable to any time and place.
Achebe deals with African society with the intention of ‘correcting’ the distortions which were deliberately
introduce by the Europeans into the history and culture of Ibo people in order to create an inferiority complex in their
minds and other Africans. In this way, Things Fall Apart is a novel about a specific society with a specific aim of
restoring their self-confidence.
However, it is partially true since the tells the story of individual or societies who grow rigid in their outlook with
the passage of time and refuse to recognize changes in their circumstances, let alone coming to terms with them. This
places them out of the contemprary reality, leading to their tragic end. This is what happens with Okonkwo and the
Ibo society of the late 19th century but also of any other society at any other time. For example, it is true for our
ancient Indian society or Chinese and Greek or Egyptian civilisations. Thus, the novel is about the human predicament
itself and is universal in appeal. It is not that Achebe is unaware of this dimension of his novel or that this universal

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element has ‘crept’ into the text unintentionally. We may recall that Achebe chose the title of the novel from a poem
the second coming by W B Yeats which talks about the cyclic movement of history in terms of order and anarchy.
Q. 4. Do you think Sunlight on A Broken Column brings out the significance of the social change that
had come about in then.
Ans. Language and Social Change: English introduced two changes. Firstly, English education and the
propagation of the language gave a new impetus to social change. Secondly, it opened out new avenues for empltment.
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Enlish education brought about new literaryu influences and whole generation of intellectuals in the mid-19
century grew up on the poetry of Byron and the ideas of Thomas Paine. At the end of the century, religious revivalism
bagan to grow, in an effort to create cultural pride and project cultural identities. The freedom strggle also gathered
momnentum during this period. Literatures of different Indian languages show this. For instance, Rabindranath Tagore’s
work in Bengali and later in the beginning of the 20th century, Premchand’s short stories and novels in hindi and urdu.

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Social History
In Sunlight On A Broken Column, the changes occurring during the mid-twentieth century have been described

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well. For instance, individualism has started replacing the collectivism, the joint family is breaking, centres of power
have changed and the democracy has been adopted, awareness and opposition of social discrimination is visible but

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the religious strife has grown.
This change has been brought about by the growth of education, voting rights of the people, two-nation theory

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(Hindus and Muslims should have two separate nations as their religion is different) and growing employment

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opportunities.
The customary systems like purda have also changed in the face of modern life. Laila is allowed to pursue higher

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studies. The change is also visible even on characters like Zahra and Sita after their trips to Europe.

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However, the gender discrimination can be observed in every sphere of life. For example, Nandi and Saliman are

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exploited by men and Aunt Abida is married to an elderly widower.

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There are a number of social changes reflected in the novel since it deals with the mid-twentieth century when

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India was being transformed from a colony to a free nation. The change was visible in almost all spheres of life and

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our society. Many significant changes of the time are reflected in Sunlight On A Broken Column. For instance, (i)

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the center of power chaged from the British to India and Pakistan and the era of democracy was ushered in; (ii) the

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joint family started giving way to nuclear family and (iii) the individualism grew; (iv) the awareness about social

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discrimination spread as well as opposition towards it; (v) but the sad part of the change is also visible in the novel —
the growing religious feuds and strife.
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The following factors were responsible for changes mentioned above:

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(a) voting rights

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(b) the two-nation theory: the growth of belief that Hindus and Muslims required two nations as they belonged to
different religions.
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(c) Growth of education

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(d) Employment opportunities.
Q. 5. Would you agree that the Kate Chopin’s Awakening was far ahead of its time? Discuss with

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suitable examples.
Ans. Contextualizing the Awakening: The Awakening begins with the Pontellier family vacationing at the
summer resort of Grand Isle. Edna, the protagonist, is the wife of a successful businessman, Léonce. Edna, her

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husband, and their two sons have rented a cottage at the resort. Since Léonce is constantly occupied with his work,
Edna begins to rely on others in Grand Isle for company. She spends most of her time with a close friend named Adele
Ratignolle; Adele acts as second mother to Edna, and teaches her many important life lessons during their time
together. Later, she meets Robert Lebrun, who is the son of the woman who manages the cottages on Grand Isle.
Robert has a notorious reputation for choosing one woman and acting as her attendant each summer. This summer
proves to be no different, as he and Edna get to know each other better. Towards the end of the vacation, she begins
to fall passionately in love with him. However, Robert realizes this relationship is ultimately a forbidden love, so he
quickly makes a plan to run off to Mexico to get away and ponder his relationship with Edna.
Once Edna and her family are back at their home in New Orleans, she is a completely different woman. Edna
seems to be giving up her old life, which she believes was trapping her for the majority of her adult years. Léonce
eventually calls in a doctor to diagnose her, but no progress is made as he can find nothing physically wrong with her.

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Her husband decides to leave her home while he goes away on a business trip. At this point in the story, Edna isolates
herself and ignores her regular responsibilities. She eventually moves out of her house. Moving out of the house is the
point in the story where her rebellion has now reached a new extreme. She rejects everything around her, including
her children, giving no thought about the future. Much to her chagrin, while Léonce is gone, she has an affair with
Alcée Arobin, who has been given the reputation as the town’s biggest flirt. Nevertheless, he is only able to satisfy her
sexual desires for a short time.
Eventually Robert returns to express his true feelings for her. Unfortunately, their reunion is interrupted as Edna
is called away to help Adèle with her difficult childbirth. Adèle then attempts to convince Edna to think of everything
she is sacrificing for this relationship. She tries to remind her of the life she once had, her husband, her children, her
place in society, and her duties. When she returns home, she finds a note left from Robert, saying he has left and will

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not be returning. Reading his words, Edna now feels completely alone in the world. She returns to Grand Isle, where
ironically, she learned to swim earlier that summer. Unable to resist the water, she swims out as far as possible,

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suffers from exhaustion, and drowns.

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Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is a frank look at a woman’s life at the turn of the 19th century. Published in 1899,

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Chopin’s novel shocked critics and audiences alike, who showed little sympathy for the author or her central protagonist,
Edna Pontellier. A master of craft, Chopin wrote a forceful novel about a woman who questioned not only her role in

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society, but the standards of society itself.

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Edna Pontellier - Edna is the protagonist of the novel, and the “awakening” to which the title refers is hers. The
twenty-eight-year-old wife of a New Orleans businessman, Edna suddenly finds herself dissatisfied with her marriage

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and the limited, conservative lifestyle that it allows. She emerges from her semi-conscious state of devoted wife and

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mother to a state of total awareness, in which she discovers her own identity and acts on her desires for emotional and

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sexual satisfaction. Through a series of experiences, or “awakenings,” Edna becomes a shockingly independent

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woman, who lives apart from her husband and children and is responsible only to her own urges and passions.

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Tragically, Edna’s awakenings isolate her from others and ultimately lead her to a state of total solitude.

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The Awakening is a woman’s desire to find and live fully within her true self. Her devotion to that purpose causes

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friction with her friends and family, and also conflicts with the dominant values of her time.

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The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier and the changes that occur in her thinking and lifestyle as the

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result of a summer romance. At the start of the story, Edna is a young mother of two and the life of a successful New

n oo
Orleans businessman. While the family is vacationing at a seaside resort, Edna becomes acquainted with Robert

s O b
Lebrun, a younger man who pays special attention to her. Moonlit walks and intimate conversations with Robert spark

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feelings that Edna has forgotten. When she returns to the city, Edna throws off the trappings of her old life –devotion

.e o
to family, attention to societal expectations, and adherence to tradition–to explore independence in love, life and
sexual fulfillment.
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BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO THE AWAKENING

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Like socio-cultural and political situation it is important to know about the novelist’s life and thought to understand
a particular novel. Reading a novel in this fashion is called biographical approach. In this approach, we learn about

H
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novelist’s personal story where we discover her/his family background, views and beliefs. For instance, in order to get
an insight into The Awakening we may read Kate Chopin’s biography. This would give us an idea of themes,
contemporary issues of her time and feminism which she deals in the novel.

w
THE CREOLE BACKGROUND
Kate Chopin experienced differentiated lifestyles throughout her time, which lent to her wide realm of societal
understanding and analysis. Her childhood consisted of an upbringing by women with ancestry descending from both
Irish and French family. Chopin also found herself within the Cajun and Creole part of the nation after she joined her
husband in Louisiana. As a result, many of her stories and sketches were about her life in Louisiana in addition to the
incorporation of her less than typical portrayals of women as their own individuals with wants and needs. Kate’s
seemingly unique writing style did in fact emerge from an admiration of Guy de Maupassant, who was a French short
story writer.
Kate Chopin went beyond Maupassant’s technique and style and gave her writing a flavor of its own. She had an
ability to perceive life and put it down on paper creatively. She put much concentration and emphasis on women’s
lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the boundaries of the patriarchy.

8
 Not many writers during the mid to late 19th century were bold enough to address subjects that Kate willingly took
on. Although David Chopin, Kate’s grandson, claims “Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist, she said so. She
was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women’s ability to be strong”.
Despite this fact, there is no question regarding where Kate’s sympathies lay. It lay with the individual in the context
of his and her personal life and society.
Through her stories, Kate wrote her own autobiography and documented her surroundings; Kate lived in a time
when her surroundings included the abolitionist movements and the emergence of feminism. Her ideas and descriptions
were not true word for word, yet there was an element of nonfiction lingering throughout each story. Kate took strong
interest in her surroundings and put many of her observations to words. Jane Le Marquand saw Chopin’s writings as
a new feminist voice, while other intellectuals recognize it as the voice of an individual who happens to be a woman.
Marquand writes, “Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing the Other, the woman, with an individual identity and

m
a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind give voice. The ‘official’ version of her life, that
constructed by the men around her, is challenged and overthrown by the woman of the story” Kate may have been

o
utilizing her creative writing skills to relay a nonfiction point of view regarding her belief in the strength of women. The
idea of creative nonfiction might be seen as relevant in this case. In order for a story to be autobiographical, or even

. c g
biographical, Marquand goes on to write, there has to be a nonfictional element, which more often than not exaggerates
the truth to spark and hold interest for the readers. There are valuable points of view outside the feminsist monopoly

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of criticism on women’s writers but these voices do not have force in this time of political correctness. Kate Chopin

r
may have felt just as surprised by the stamp on her work as feministic as she had been in her own time by the stamp
of immorality. It is difficult in any time in history for critics to regard writers as individuals with personal points of view

a i
with no special message to a particular faction in society.

d
Louisiana Creole refers to people of various racial backgrounds who are descended from the colonial French/

a
m
Spanish settlers, African Americans and Native Americans from the time before the Louisiana territory became a

Re
possession of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase(1803). Unlike many other ethnic groups in the United

y
States who are immigrants, Creoles are a group that originated in North America and descended from native-born

d
peoples.

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