Kate Chopin and Local Color :: Expository Essays

Kate Chopin and Local Color The background alineting of most of Chopins stories is the Creole culture of southern Louisiana. Southern Louisiana was far to a greater extent French than American as a large portion of the culture was Creole -- those being the posterity of French and Spanish colonists. This Creole society was united in its Catholicism, and the French language and therefore became a cultural subgroup which had little in common with, and was ofttimes in conflict with, Anglo-American society (Walker, 97). This region of Louisiana was referred to as a Southern Babylon (Walker, 97). And it was this backdrop of society that Chopin used in her work which earned her the evaluate of being a local- tinctist. Consequently the term local-color is generally taken to mean that the work has only a narrow appeal as a regeneration= piece and are noted more for skillful regional description than for insight into human nature (Bourn). One common character referenceistic of the local c olor movement is the intermixing of the languages of the area, being in Chopins stories English and French. Yet the use of dialect, also being part of the realist tradition, reveals the various ethnical groups and ... provides some regional color (The youthful Laurel Review). The use of language is important to Chopins characters status in society for example, the higher up the characters status is the less his/her accent is discernible while the lowest character in the story, speaks an exaggerated mix of Creole dialect and black dialect (Bourn). However the dialect used does not become a central focus obscuring the more imaginative aspects of Chopins stories (The New Laurel Review). Yet Chopin surpasses the limitations set by the local color movement, such as being novelty pieces and having a narrow appeal, because the ethnic characters that she creates are individuals first and members of a race or nationality second (The New Laurel Review). Chopin is not there just to record the lives of people in an area, but to present how people in these places encounter and deal with issues that have universal value (Bourn). And therefore, in direct contrast to a local color novel ... being whiz in which the identity of the setting is integral to the very unfolding of the theme, rather than simply incidental to a theme that could as well be set anywhere (May, 216).