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摘 要

凯特·肖邦是十九世纪末美国著名的女性主义创作先驱。她的作品有许多待人发掘的特点，她笔下的女主角要求个人自由、渴望实现自身价值、忠实于自我。但同时她们又在传统的以家庭为中心的贤妻良母角色和追求自由实现自我的新女性角色之间矛盾着，徘徊着。

本文重点分析凯特·肖邦的两部具有代表性的短篇小说：《一小时的故事》、和《懊悔》。许多学者和评论家认为《一小时的故事》和《懊悔》等短篇小说为女性主义作品，但本文另辟蹊径，不仅从文章标题，语言的应用，还从具体的情节以及作者自身说撰写的日记探索了故事中表现的戏剧性的反讽。以及女主人公面对女性意识的觉醒所表现出来的矛盾心理。

关键词： 反讽 追求自由 婚姻家庭 矛盾心理

1. Introduction

Kate Chopin, (1850, 2, 8—1904, 8, 22), was an American author of short stories and novels. She is now considered a forerunner of the feminist authors of the 20^th century. Her major works were two short story collections, Bayon Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her important short stories included “Desiree’s baby” (1893), “The story of an hour” (1894), and “The storm” (1898). Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening” (1898).

Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the third of five children, but her sisters died in infancy and her brothers died in their early twenties. She was the only child to live past the age of twenty-five. After her father’s death in 1855, Chopin developed a close relationship with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. That had practical impact on her writing style. In 1870, at the age of 20, she married Oscar Chopin and settled in New Orleans. Chopin had all six of her children by 28. Her husband Oscar Chopin died in 1882. The following year, Chopin’s mother died. Chopin found herself in a state of depression after the loss of both her husband and her mother. At this time, Chopin realized that writing would be a source of therapeutic healing for herself.

In 1899, her second novel, The Awakening was published, and the book was criticized because of its moral as well as its literary standards. This, her best-known work, is the story of a woman trapped in the confines of an oppressive society. Out of print for several decades, it is now widely available and critically acclaimed for its writing quality and importance as an early feminist work.

Over a long period of time, many critics have also considered Kate Chopin’s many short stories as works of feminism. But this essay explores the irony and contradiction (having feminism) in her several short stories.

2. Literature review

Kate Chopin is an outstanding woman writer in the late 19th century America. As The Awakening and many short stories such as The Story of an Hour came out, consequently there arises criticism widely from the readers and scholars at that time, because her works deal with the female awakening and rebellion against paternity. It is not until half century later that her works are reassessed by critics. Some of these researches are related to the topic of my thesis.

Some short stories written by Kate Chopin such as The Story of an Hour, Madame Celestin’s Divorce, A lady of Bayou St. John, and Regret are regarded as the feminist works that are against the patriarchal oppression by many readers and the scholars. For instance, Liu Zhuo (2004), analyzed the historical background of the protagonist’s self-consciousness, and explored how American main stream society ignored women’s values and imposed constraints on spiritual freedom. He thought that this short story aimed to reveal the cruel reality that ignored the women’s social value and reflect the pursuit about self-value of women. Song Xue (2010) explored the heroine’s pursuit of freedom and awakening of female consciousness and she noted The Dream of an Hour offers a perfect example for feminist ideology and writing in modern literature. As far as she is concerned, Mrs. Mallard is regarded as the embodiment of ideality and beauty. Chopin pinned her own social ideal into Mrs. Mallard. The two scholars Liu Zhuo and Song Xue hold a positive attitude towards Mrs. Mallard and they think the heroine represented the women of expressing the advance of society and the heroine gave off the voice of feminist consciousness.

There is another attitude towards Mrs. Mallard. These readers and scholars bitterly criticize Mrs. Mallard and seek the real point of Chopin’s short stories. Form another perspective, Zhou Yapin (2012) explores the dramatized irony in The Story of an Hour, not only from the title, the language, the relationship among the main characters, but also from the plot, the author’s diary to reveal that though Chopin sympathizes with the heroine, she puts bitter irony on her. Sun Shengzhong (2003)

probes into irony, symbolism and other literary techniques used by Chopin through close reading her two famous short stories The Story of an Hour and The Storm, and points out that besides feminism, there are irony and symbolism in Chopin’s stories.

All of the essays that deal with Kate Chopin’s short stories are almost from the aspect of feminism, and there are still little essay dealing with the irony and contradictory in her short stories, which this essay is going to discuss.

3. The mastery use of irony in Chopin’s short stories

This chapter is going to deal with the use of irony in these two short stories through a detailed analysis of heroines and to point out the facts of these two short stories are not feminist works. Although Chopin shows sympathy for the heroines, she puts bitter irony on them actually.

3.1 The irony in The Story of an Hour

3.1.1 Brief introduction to The Story of an Hour

Mrs. Mallard, the heroine, is afflicted with a heart disease. Her sister Josephine told her that her husband has died in a train accident. All her families and friends worry if she could bear this fatal blow but she did not behave as many women have heard the same. “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.” And then she went away to her room alone. Although her body was very tired, her inner world was not. And everything changed when Mrs. Mallard looks outside the opening window, “the delicious breath of the rain was in the air.”, “in the street below a peddler was crying his wares.” This sense which full of vitality and new life, let her gradually arouse the idea that hidden in her heart: “Free, free, free.”.“they stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.”She was finally free, nothing can limit her to start her new life, even she began to pray for her to live longer. Of course, she knew that she should weep because of her husband’s death, she loved her husband deeply, but she saw a long procession of years to come that would belong to her and she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. What a satire this is on her. She loved her husband but her mind was full of some “strange feeling”. And this was not the end. “Free! Body and soul free” she kept whispering. And her sister was worried about her in the room alone. But she answered “I am not making myself ill.” She was drinking in a very elixir of life. But this freedom time didn’t last for long, because of her husband’s back. Her husband did not die in the accident. At the

moment her husband came back, she lost her freedom again. Mrs. Mallard was crazy about freedom. But she also died for the joy of freedom. “Monstrous joy” occupied Mrs. Mallard and lead to her death.

3.1.2 Exploration of the irony towards Mrs. Mallard through detailed textual analysis

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is considered as one of the representatives of feminist literature. The story shows a traditional wife’s short-lived discovery of something called freedom. She had become a free woman when she realizes her husband has died. But is the result successful? She dies of a heart attack when she sees her husband is alive.

Then I will specifically analyze the use of irony in this short story. First it’s not hard to see the title “The Story of an Hour” implies the ironic meaning. When this short story was first published in 1894, the original name was “The Dream of an Hour”. It’s more obvious to see the ironic meaning from this original name. Within an hour, Mrs. Mallard had an experience of life and death, freedom and repression. Mrs. Mallard pursued freedom but finally it’s just a dream. She died of “monstrous joy” or she killed herself.

In the first seven paragraphs, there are two ironic oppositions. The first is the contrast between Mrs. Mallard’s practical situation and the expectation of readers. The second is the comparison between Mrs. Mallard’s physical condition and psychological status. Richards and Josephine take it for granted that Mrs. Mallard loves her husband deeply, so she can’t accept the fact of his death. But their worry is needless. Superficially, Mrs. Mallard is sad and “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arm.” But Mrs. Mallard’s sadness is not true in the pen of Chopin’s. Other women would be profoundly shocked and broken-hearted and can’t accept the news of the death of their husbands. Mrs. Mallard was different with others. She cried “at once” and “with sudden”. Mrs. Mallard was abnormal and this abnormality has ironic meaning. Besides this, in the story, Chopin described the exhaustion of the heroine’s body. “Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical

exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” She looked very tired. We know the other women will be heavy-headed and they will not pay attention to the scene through the window. But in the fifth paragraph, the heroine could see the new spring life and she could notice the peddler was crying his wares. It’s obviously that her mind was active and feverish. Chopin ironically implied that Mrs. Mallard was lack of sadness that she should have through the contrast between her tired body and active mind.

From paragraph 8, the focus turned to describe the process of Mrs. Mallard’s pursuing freedom. The use of irony is continued in this part. Firstly, Chopin highlighted the non-rational factor. The first sentence of the eighth paragraph showed us Mrs. Mallard had a strong self-control. However, the second sentence started with the world “but” and it showed she has lost her reason. “But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky”. Mrs. Mallard stared at the sky and waited for the freedom to invade her body. But we can know she was reluctant from the word “fearfully”. “She was striving to beat it back with her will.” In her inner world, she resisted the freedom but her mind was too weak. She failed to the freedom. In this part, Chopin made the “freedom” become an outer force. The freedom invades Mrs. Mallard. From the ninth paragraph, it’s easy to see the author regard freedom as monster, ghost, or something harmful.

In paragraph 11 and paragraph 12, the ghost of “freedom” invades and occupies Mrs. Mallard. In the story, it shows us the status of Mrs. Mallard after she is bewitched. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips”. We can see in the sentence “she said it over and over under her breath: Free, free, free!” the word “free” is given out by the ghost that occupied Mrs. Mallard. It is an involuntary behavior that she repeats this word in the state of enchantment. Chopin creates strong irony when she uses the words such as “hold” “control” to represent “freedom” and describes “freedom” as a ghost, an invader.

In paragraph 13, the story describes Mrs. Mallard’s husband. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face

that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.” From this, we can have the idea that Mrs. Mallard loves her husband very much and he is the man most deserving of sympathy. We can say there are no feminist works that don’t describe male oppression but to describe the “kindness and tenderness” of males. Chopin satirizes Mrs. Mallard by means of describing the virtue of her husband.

Kate Chopin got married at an early age and the couple had strong affections. But her husband died when she was only 31 years old. She missed him very much and lived in widowhood throughout her remaining life. Chopin expressed her deep love to her husband in her diary that “I would unhesitatingly give up everything if it were possible for my husband to come back to earth. To do that, I would have to forget the past ten years of my growth-my real growth”. This diary was written only one month after Chopin wrote “The Story of an Hour”. From Chopin’s diary, we have no difficulty in understanding her ironic attitude towards Mrs. Mallard.

The surprising ending also revealed Chopin’s satire to Mrs. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard was drinking in a very elixir of life and she is like a goddess of Victory. However she died of “monstrous joy” with a sudden. Doctors and the other people believe that she died of “joy that kills”. But readers can get the true reason that she died of the disillusionment of freedom because she can’t accept the fact that her dead husband is alive. Extreme joy gives rise to sorrow. This produces a kind of dramatized irony.

In conclusion, Chopin’s irony aims at Mrs. Mallard but more aims at “freedom” itself. “Of joy that kills” are the last words and Chopin emphasizes these words using a dash. These words have been echoed with “monstrous joy”. It tells us that the ghost of freedom controls Mrs. Mallard successfully and leads to her death.

3.2 The irony in Regret

3.2.1 Brief introduction to Regret

The short story Regret was written and published in 1894. It was the same year that Chopin wrote the short story The Story of an Hour. In the beginning of the story, the author shows us a female manor owner named Mamzelle Aurelie which looked

like a male. She possessed a strong figure and she wore a man’s hat about the farm. From her appearance, we know the heroine is different from other women. Mamzelle Aurelie had never thought of marrying. She had never been in love. But she also never regretted her choice. She was alone in the world except her dog and her workers. But she never felt lonely until she looked after her neighbor Odile’s four children. When she first met these four children, she was unwilling in her mind. She thought the children might have fallen from the clouds, so unexpected and bewildering was their coming, and so unwelcome. But she must look after them in the following two weeks. For her, she would rather manage a dozen plantations than four children. She had no experience in looking after children but the reality forced her to learn, how to cooking for children, how to tell them stories, how to coax them to go to sleep. Little by littler, she became accustomed to the laughing, the crying, the chattering that echoed through the house and around it all day long. She could sleep comfortably with little child’s hot, plump body pressed close against her. She was a newcomer but had acclimatized herself to be a “mother” and she no longer complained. After two weeks, their mother Odile came back, the four children must go back to their home. Then finally Mamzelle Aurelie cried facing the large and empty house and she regretted about her initial choice no marriage, no children.

3.2.2 Exploration of the irony towards Mamzelle Aurelie through detailed textual analysis

This is also an ironic short story like The Story of an Hour. The title “Regret” is full of ironic meaning. We know regret is a feeling of sadness or disappointment, which is caused by something that has happened or something that you have done or not done. But in this essay, there is a sentence that is “At the age of fifty she had not yet lived to regret it.” “Not regret” turned to “Regret”. This is a big contrast. Mamzelle Aurelie is a woman who remains single all of the time. She is independent and self-strengthening. She even does better in works than man. In the first three paragraphs, the author demonstrated this for us. If we have read this story, we can know these paragraphs showed Chopin’s strong ironic attitude towards Mamzelle

Aurelie. Chopin got married in her age of 20 and had all of her six children by 28. Mamzelle Aurelie has almost 50 years old but she didn’t married. Chopin advocates familism and marriage ethnic. So it’s not so hard to infer her attitude towards the heroine a single woman from the beginning of the story.

In the 4^th paragraph, a single woman had to look after four children although she is so unwilling. Talking about children, we usually describe them as the gifts from God. They are cute, lovely, attractive, etc. But in Mamzelle Aurelie’s eyes, they are “fallen from the clouds” “unexpected” and “unwelcome”. This contrast also has a strong ironic meaning. When the four children’s mother left, “Mamzelle Aurelie stood contemplating the children. She looked with a critical eye upon Marceline.” From the words “contemplating” “critical eye”, we can see she was unamiable towards children and she doesn’t like children at all.

In the 19^th century, most people believed women’s obligation was support husband and raise the children. But the heroine is an exception. You may think she is a woman who believes in and supports feminism. But the ending will tell you the truth. After the four children gone, let us see what happened. “Mamzelle Aurelie seated herself beside the table. She gave one slow glance through the room, into which the evening shadows were creeping and deepening around her solitary figure. She let her head fall down upon her bended arm, and began to cry. Oh, but she cried! Not softly, as women often do. She cried like a man, with sobs that seemed to tear her very soul.” Mamzelle Aurelie was very sad. She loved the four children after living together two weeks and she loved the life that companied with the four children. But she is a single woman. She didn’t have her own child. If she had feminist consciousness, she wouldn’t cry at last. If Chopin wanted to express the feminist thought, she wouldn’t plan this ending. So the theme of this short story only has one, that is, we should hold an affirmative attitude towards family and marriage life and take warming from the heroine Mamzelle Aurelie

4. Chopin’s contradictory attitude in The Story of an Hour

This chapter will focus on the short story “The Story of an Hour” again. In the last chapter, we discuss this short story from the aspect of irony. “The Story of an Hour” is not a feminist work. But it cannot be denied that the feminist thought appeared in this story. The fact is Chopin doesn’t approve of this thought, but it controls the heroine’s body. So it is contradictory in Mrs. Mallard’s heart. She should balance her inward world and outward force. In the following part, I will analyze the contradictory factors.

4.1 Weakness vs. Endurance

In the beginning of the story, we are informed the heroine suffered from heart disease. The author wants to say Mrs. Mallard is weak in body as well as in mind. So her sister Josephine told the news to her in broken sentences with great care. In Josephine’s eyes, her sister is a weak woman and she can’t accept this grievous news. If the news is told with no preparation, Mrs. Mallard must fall in a faint even die. But surprisingly, she doesn’t fall in a faint and die. “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself, she goes away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” From her behavior, we know she is not a weak woman but a strong one. She is abnormal or she is not herself already.

4.2 Obedience vs. Rebellion

Before Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies, she is a tender woman and a good wife. She would be obedient to her husband and tries her best to support him. She would be honored by people. However, everything changed after she got the news that her husband died. Now, she is a woman who has rebellious spirit. We can confirm this from three aspects. First, when the storm of grief gone, she went away to her room alone and not allowed her sister to follow her. She rejected other people’s comfort and wanted to stay alone. Second, Mrs. Mallard’s mental activity in her house

demonstrate she began to rebel. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: Free, free, free!” “Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” Now, Mrs. Mallard is not an obedient lady but a crazy mutineer. Finally, she refused to open the door. She said: “Go away! I am not making myself ill.” How tough she is! She is on longer what she used to be.

4.3 Love or not

Does Mrs. Mallard love her husband? You may have this question after reading this short story. Of course, she loves her husband. She wept at once after she knew his death. And when she recognized the ghost of freedom that was approaching to possess her, she was striving to beat it back. She doesn’t want this strange feeling to control her. She is struggling. Then, the description of her husband tells us they love each other. Mrs. Mallard knew she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death. However, she was still conquered by the ghost of freedom. She betrayed their love but to choose freedom.

4.4 Rebirth vs. Death

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