论肖邦短篇小说女性意识的矛盾性

The Contradictoriness of Female Consciousness in Kate Chopin's Works

美国作家凯特?肖邦因大胆书写女性觉醒意识的作品,被公认为19世纪女权主义的先驱。分析肖邦短篇小说中女性的命运与结局,可以看出,肖邦作品的女性意识具有一定的矛盾性:她们常常在觉醒意识和传统意识中犹疑,选择的阶段性命运和最终命运往往大相径庭。通过分析《黛西蕾的婴孩》、《阿泰娜依斯》、《暴风雨》等七部短篇小说中的三类女性人物:以死亡为结局的女人,曾经觉醒但最终回归传统婚姻的女人,体验和准备尝试婚外情的女人,充分论证肖邦短篇小说中女性意识的矛盾性。而小说中女性人物的矛盾性深受作者肖邦本人的血统、独特个性、女权运动思想以及写作习惯的影响。另外,被冠以女性主义作家的肖邦在某些长期以来被人认为进步的作品中隐藏着种族主义和父权主义的观点。

Due to her bold writing of female consciousness awakening, American writer Kate Chopin is widelyacknowledged as a pioneer in the 19th century feminist movement. However, by analyzing the fates and endingsof the female protagonists in her short stories, the paper finds that Chopin’s works are full of contradictoriness interms of feminist consciousness, for the heroines often fluctuate between the awakening consciousness and thetraditional assumptions, thus a total difference between their choices of fate and their final destinies. Thecontradictoriness is fully explored based on the close analyses of three heroine types in her seven short stories,Désirée’s Baby, Athéna?se, The Storm and so on: the one who dies in the end, the one who once awakens buteventually returns to traditional marriage and the one who has experienced an extramarital life or is ready to do so.Such a mentality is a natural product of the family origin, the unique personality, the feminist thoughts and thewriting habits of the writer. In addition, some of her works, which have been considered as writings in progressever since, are even embedded with racial discrimination and paternalism.