Bird Symbolism in Kate Chopin’s Fiction:
Birds as Representatives of Women and Freedom
Jenni Endén University of Tampere School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies English Philology Pro Gradu Thesis June 2010
Englantilainen filologia
Kieli- ja käännöstieteiden laitos
Jenni Endén: Bird Symbolism in Kate Chopin‟s Fiction: Birds as Representatives of Women and Freedom
Pro gradu –tutkielma, 105 sivua Kevät 2010
--- Tutkielmani tarkoituksena on analysoida yhdysvaltalaisen Kate Chopinin romaaneissa ja novelleissa esiintyviä lintukuvia ja niiden symboliikkaa. Kuten työssäni osoitan, linnut symboloivat Chopinin tuotannossa erityisesti naisia. Lintukuvien kautta usein myös kritisoidaan epäsuorasti naisen asemaa 1800-luvun loppupuolen Yhdysvalloissa, ja erityisesti maan eteläosien kreoliyhteisöissä, joiden kulttuurin ja elämäntapojen kuvaamiseen Chopinin tuotanto keskittyy. Koska naisen aseman kritiikin ymmärtämiseksi on tarpeen ymmärtää ajan yhteiskuntaa, kuvaan tutkielmassani lyhyesti myös Chopinin teosten historiallista ja yhteiskunnallista taustaa.
Tutkielmani keskeinen teoreettinen viitekehys on feministinen kirjallisuudentutkimus.
Keskeisimpiä teoreettisia käsitteitä joiden kautta lähestyn lintusymboliikkaa ja erityisesti siihen sisältyvää naisen aseman kritiikkiä ovat Gayle Rubinin kehittämä sex/gender –järjestelmä ja
sukupuolen käsite, sekä binääriset oppositiot, eli toisensa poissulkevina vastakohtina nähdyt käsiteparit.
Binääristen oppositioiden osalta hyödynnän erityisesti Hélène Cixous‟n ajattelua. Chopinin tuotannon lintusymboliikan kannalta keskeisiä ovat erityisesti dikotomiat mies/nainen ja kulttuuri/luonto, mutta näiden lisäksi ja näihin liittyen myös esimerkiksi sellaiset käsiteparit kuin ääni/hiljaisuus,
aktiivisuus/passiivisuus ja sielu/ruumis. Binäärinen ajattelu rakentuu sukupuolen ympärille, ja kaikissa pareissa toinen käsite liittyykin naisellisuuteen, toinen miehisyyteen. Näin binäärisen ajattelun kautta luodaan myös kuva naiseudesta ja miehisyydestä. Naiseen liitetään perinteisesti yllä mainittujen käsiteparien jälkimmäinen käsite: luonto, hiljaisuus, passiivisuus ja ruumis. Binääriset oppositiot siis luovat ja vahvistavat essentialistista naiskuvaa ja luonnollistavat eroja. On kuitenkin huomattava, että niin binäärisen parin käsitteiden vastakohtaisuus ja toisensa poissulkevuus kuin parien välille luodut yhteydetkin ovat keinotekoisia. Siksi ne on myös mahdollista kyseenalaistaa, kuten Chopin tekee.
Jotta olisi mahdollista ymmärtää miten lintusymboliikka soveltuu binäärisen logiikan
kyseenalaistamiseen, on tärkeää ymmärtää miten lintuja on aiemmin käytetty symboleina ja millaisia merkityksiä niihin liittyy. Tarjoan siis työssäni myös katsauksen lintusymboliikan aiempiin
merkityksiin erityisesti siltä osin kuin ne ovat relevantteja Chopinin teoksissa ilmenevien lintujen analyysissä. Analyysissäni osoitan että Chopinin tuotannossa lintusymboliikalla ilmaistaan yhtäältä naisen elämän rajoittuneisuutta ja toisaalta naisten vapaudenkaipuuta ja pyrkimyksiä saavuttaa itsenäisempi ja vapaampi elämä. Vankeutta symboloivat Chopin tuotannossa erityisesti häkkeihin vangitut tai ketjuin kahlitut linnut sekä kesyt kanalinnut. Lintu naisen symbolina vaikuttaa
ensisilmäyksellä perinteiseltä ratkaisulta, joka tukee binääristä ajattelua yhdistämällä naiset luontoon.
Toisaalta linnun käyttö naisen symbolina myös kyseenalaistaa dikotomioille perustuvan ajattelun ja erityisesti eri käsiteparien välille rakennetut yhteydet: vaikka linnut toki ovat osa luontoa, on niiden symbolisessa merkityksessä vielä luontoakin keskeisempää ajatus vapaudesta ja yhteys sieluun. Näin ollen Chopinin lintusymboliikka rikkoo binäärisen ajattelun rajoja yhdistämällä naiset vapauteen ja sieluun, sen sijaan että naiseus nähtäisiin ensisijaisesti ruumiillisena ja lisääntymisen välineenä.
Lisäksi Chopinin linnut, edes häkein ja ketjuin vangitut papukaijat ja matkijalinnut, eivät useinkaan ole passiivisia ja pysy vaiti. Lintusymboliikan avulla kyseenalaistetaan siis myös naisten perinteinen yhteys hiljaisuuteen ja passiivisuuteen. Lintukuvissa ääni ilmentääkin usein naisten kapinaa – samoin
kuin teosten naishahmot, äänekkäät linnut kapinoivat rajoituksia vastaan sen sijaan että hyväksyisivät hiljaa kohtalonsa. Kuten lintujen äänet, ovat kapinan muodotkin erilaisia: naisen kapina voi ilmentyä esimerkiksi aviomiehen toiveiden vastustamisena tai pakoyrityksenä. Eräs keskeinen kapinan muoto on lisäksi taide. Chopin lintusymboliikka ottaakin kantaa paitsi naisen asemaan yleisesti, myös erityisesti naistaiteilijoiden asemaan.
Asiasanat: Chopin, Kate, feministinen kirjallisuudentutkimus, lintusymboliikka, naiset : Yhdysvallat : 1800-luku
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Theoretical Framework ... 8
2.1 The Sex/Gender System and Women‟s Position in the Victorian Society ... 8
2.2 Binary Oppositions and Bird Symbolism ... 20
3. Birds and the Representation of Female Containment ... 32
3.1 Caged and Chained Birds: Women Confined ... 32
3.2 Domesticated Birds: A Symbol of Women as Property ... 47
4. Escaping the Cage: Women’s Rebellion and Self-Expression ... 63
4.1 Attempts at Self-Ownership ... 64
4.2 Refusing to Remain Silent: Women and Art ... 73
4.3 Dream Birds Taking Flight: Imagining Freedom ... 85
5. Conclusion... 98
Works Cited ... 103
1. Introduction
Kate Chopin (née O‟Flaherty) was born in St. Louis in 1851. Her father was Irish and her mother a descendant of early French pioneers. Chopin married into a prominent Louisiana Creole family in 1870. She lived in New Orleans and northwest Louisiana until her husband‟s death in 1882, after which she returned with her six children to St. Louis, where she started writing and offering her short stories for publication. Gradually, she gained literary repute for her short stories, many of which were initially published in magazines and later collected into the collections Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Chopin was regarded as a local colorist in her own lifetime, because the regional Creole culture of Louisiana was a central element in much of her writing, especially in her early work. Along with the short stories she published two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899), the latter of which is her best known work today. At the time of its publication, The Awakening was considered scandalous and condemned because of its frank and nonjudgmental treatment of female sexuality and marital infidelity. Chopin‟s health started to decline at the turn of the century, and this, together with the extremely negative reception of The Awakening, which she had perceived to be her masterpiece – a view which is nowadays commonly shared by scholars – caused her literary productivity to decrease drastically. She wrote only few more stories and sketches before her death in 1904.
Kate Chopin‟s work, which consists of novels, short fiction, drama, poetry and essays, has received a great amount of scholarly attention during the last few decades. While much has been written about her production, and especially the novel The Awakening, which is Chopin‟s most famous work, there remain aspects of her writing that have not yet been explored to the full. One of these aspects is her use of symbolism and more precisely, her use of birds as symbols for many of the key thematic elements that recur in her writing, such as freedom and the aspiration for it, an individual‟s rebellion against social norms and the spiritual as opposed to the material. In the limited space of this thesis, I cannot analyze in detail all of Chopin‟s stories or all of her bird symbolism. Therefore I have had to make a
selection: I will focus especially on At Fault, The Awakening and the short stories “Athénaïse” (1894),
“Lilacs” (1896) and “Charlie” (1900), and refer only briefly to Chopin‟s other stories.
While bird symbolism in Chopin‟s work has not been studied very thoroughly, some birds in The Awakening have been rather commonly referred to by scholars – mainly the parrot which appears in the opening scene of the novel and the wounded bird at the end of the novel. Some references to birds in The Awakening appear in many articles, such as Marion Muirhead‟s (2000) conversational analysis of the novel and Patricia L. Bradley‟s (2005) reading of intertextualities in The Awakening. Even those analyses in which birds are more central, the scope of the analysis is often very limited. Little attention has been given to other birds than the two most famous ones even in The Awakening. Far less yet has been given to those that appear in Chopin‟s other works – these birds are rarely even mentioned in passing. Birds in Chopin‟s fiction have not yet been analyzed sufficiently, then, even though some articles on them have appeared. These include one by Max Despain and Thomas Bonner Jr. (2005), who trace the origins of Chopin‟s bird imagery, another one by Stephen Heath (1994), who reads The Awakening as a rewriting of Gustave Flaubert‟s Madame Bovary (1856) and analyzes some of
Chopin‟s parrot imagery and one by Elizabeth Elz (2003), whose reading of birds in The Awakening I find less than convincing and intend to contest in this thesis. One of the more recent studies that includes some analysis of Chopin‟s birds is an article by Zoila Clark, “The Bird that Came out of the Cage: A Foucauldian Feminist Approach to Kate Chopin‟s The Awakening” (2008). While providing some interesting insights on the nature of the societal cage, for example, this analysis is insufficient in that it completely ignores all but the two most famous bird scenes in The Awakening and fails to recognize several important aspects of even those scenes which are analyzed.
Chopin‟s stories are mainly stories of women, and even when the point of view is that of a man, as it sometimes is, the direction of the gaze is nevertheless often directed at women and the relationships between women and men. This is not to say the stories would not have anything to say about men, their inner lives and development: as Peggy Skaggs aptly points out, some stories do tell the tale of boys or
men as well (270-271), and as Donald Ringe, too, has noted, awakenings of different kinds do happen to men as well as women in Chopin‟s production (580-581). It is nonetheless justified to say that women are at the center of most of Chopin‟s stories, and that her fiction in general is mainly concerned with the lives and situations of women.
It is my intention to connect these two in this thesis: bird symbolism and women. I will argue that birds in Chopin‟s work symbolize the thematic elements mentioned above – freedom and the aspiration for it, frictions in the relationship between an individual and the society, and the relationship between the spiritual and the material – especially in connection to women‟s situations and experiences. While there are countless birds in Chopin‟s production and their significance is greatly varied, I believe that the connection of the birds to women is a central, recurring symbolic value that most, if not all, birds in her works have in common. A great many birds are there in Chopin‟s works to reflect and represent women, and especially their desire for freedom: their quest for physical, emotional, sexual, financial, artistic and intellectual independence. In this thesis I shall concentrate on examining bird imagery in Chopin‟s work, especially from the point of view of how women and their situations are reflected in bird images. For this reason, I will need to afford some space in the thesis for an analysis of female characters, their lives and relationship with the surrounding society, as well as the bird scenes themselves. I will, then, also look at women‟s position in general, both in the reality of 19th-century United States and in Chopin‟s work.
Chopin‟s bird symbolism relates to and in some instances challenges dichotomies which have been – and to an extent still are – central in Western thinking, such as culture/nature, activity/passivity and soul/body. These dichotomies are all tied to the dichotomy man/woman, and their relationship to this concept pair in particular is addressed by bird symbolism in Chopin‟s work. Even though Chopin‟s work does not entirely deconstruct binary thinking, the connections between different concepts within the framework, as well as their hierarchy, is questioned. I will show, for example, that inconveniently
noisy birds symbolize women‟s rebellion, and thus question the traditional connection of women to silence and passivity, which is created through binary oppositions.
Because I intend to analyze the bird symbolism in Chopin‟s fiction as a representation of women and a commentary on their position, my theoretical framework consists of the work of several feminist scholars. I will refer to the classic analysis of female containment by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. However, my most central theoretical background consists of poststructuralist feminist scholars such as Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler. While there are differences between these scholars, of course, they all offer valuable insights into an examination of issues related to sex and gender. In Cixous‟ work I am most interested in the feminist application of the idea of binary oppositions, and Irigaray has aptly analyzed the images of women created for example by the male dominated scientific discourses of the past. Butler‟s criticism of the sex gender division, on the other hand, offers a new point of view to the sex-gender system that was first introduced to feminist thinking by Gayle Rubin.
The central concepts in this thesis are binary oppositions and the sex gender system, which I will discuss in more detail in chapter 2. In chapter 2 I will also discuss bird symbolism in general: how birds have been used as a symbol before and how their general symbolism makes birds a symbol that is well suited for critiquing women‟s position. My main source with bird symbolism is a study by Beryl Rowland, Birds with Human Souls: A Guide to Bird Symbolism (1978). Along with a theoretical framework for my thesis, I intend to give a social background to Chopin‟s texts in chapter 2. I will, then, discuss women‟s position in 19th-century United States: this includes issues such as women‟s position in marriage, legal and citizenship status, possibilities for education and rights with regard to property.
Bird images are recurrently present in Chopin‟s work. Nature in general is quite central in her fiction: birds are only one of the many nature-related motifs that recur in her writing. Many of her stories, which were originally viewed essentially as local color writing, are situated in the rural Creole
society in late 19th-century Louisiana, particularly the Cane River area in the Natchitoches parish.
Cultivated landscapes are often depicted, then, as well as forests and wildlife. Furthermore, Chopin often contrasts wild nature with tamed nature and life in the city with life in the countryside. Therefore, her work can definitely be said to participate in the debate between culture and nature that was going on during the late 19th century. It also takes part in the discussion and re-evaluation of the Victorian values and ideals that were still dominant at the time, and is linked to and comments on such literary styles as realism, naturalism and genteel writing, as well as local color, romanticism, modernism and fin de siècle writing.
Chopin‟s work has been labeled as belonging to early American realism, and she was strongly influenced by Guy de Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert. She was, nevertheless, critical of both realism and naturalism and is known to have ridiculed such naturalists as Émile Zola in her fiction (Heath, 11).
In “Lilacs”, the main character, Adrienne, threatens to use a volume of Zola as a weapon, to which purpose it is well suited because “… the weightiness, the heaviness of Mons. Zola are such that they cannot fail to prostrate you; thankful you may be if they leave you with energy to regain your feet”
(362). While Chopin did appreciate Zola‟s realism, she found his writing and especially its focus on detailed description of the material world clumsy and boring and did not assign it great artistic value (Seyersted, 23-24). Furthermore, she objected to the idea of literature being used for didactic purposes (Seyersted, 24). Chopin did aim for the ideal of direct representation of life, but she preferred a rather more impressionistic style, and a focus on the inner life rather than on external details. These views are in accordance with her admiration for the works of Maupassant, whose psychological realism she valued greatly (Seyersted, 24).
Chopin‟s writing tends to center around upper middle-class people, and due to this, as well as some of her stylistic and linguistic choices, her name has been attached to the genteel style as well. This is particularly the case for her early works, which did indeed please the genteel audiences of the time.
However, she did not completely adhere to the rules of the genteel either, and her treatment of the topic
of an adulterous woman in The Awakening is certainly far removed from that style. In The Awakening there are clearly present elements from a variety of literary styles, and accordingly, it has been labeled quite varyingly by different scholars: Donald Ringe calls it “a powerful romantic novel” (587). Indeed, Edna‟s search of an individual, genuine identity, her “real me”, as well as her wish to fulfill her
individual needs without interference from the society is in accordance with the Romantic ideal. In this sense, Chopin could even be viewed as walking in the footsteps of Walt Whitman – although with a difference, as the individual on a quest for self is a woman. To George Spangler, on the other hand, The Awakening is “a complex, psychological novel” apart for its ending which to him falls rather into the category of “a conventional sentimental novel” (255). The Awakening has also been connected with the fin de siècle aesthetic of decadence (Haddox, 82-85).
Most of Chopin‟s stories are situated in Louisiana and they depict the Creole society of the area accurately and in great detail. These stories have often been labeled mainly as local color writing. In this sense, Chopin could be viewed as following in the footsteps of such local colorists as Mary Wilkins Freeman and Sarah Orne Jewett, whom she is known to have admired, and with whose work Chopin‟s style could be said to have much in common. Jewett and Chopin, for example, both share a rich depiction of local habits and people, and especially a lively and realistic representation of local speech patterns, as well as evocative nature imagery. Furthermore, all three writers use bird imagery, and have, significantly, a special focus on women‟s lives and experiences. While the local color aspects of Chopin‟s stories are not, by any means, my main focus, the Creole society does form a central background to Chopin‟s description of the human condition in general and of women‟s position in particular. Therefore it is important to understand this particular culture that she so often describes.
Creoles were an ethnic group in the South of the United States. They were white descendants of the early French or Spanish colonists of Louisiana and the Gulf States, and immensely proud of their noble ancestors, whose characteristic speech and culture they preserved. The Creole society was francophone and greatly influenced by French customs and Catholic faith. The Cajuns or Acadians, on the other
hand, who feature in Chopin‟s fiction along with the Creoles, were the less wealthy descendants of the French settlers who were expelled from Nova Scotia in the 18th century (Seyersted, 22). Of course there were other groups in the South as well, who were a part of the Creole social system in one way or another, such as free black people and slaves, “Americans” from the North of the United States, Native Americans, foreigners and more recent immigrants from Europe. These people all feature in Chopin‟s writing in some way, but the stories located in the South tend to center around the Creoles.
In focusing on birds as representatives of women‟s desire for freedom I have had to ignore, to a great extent, many other, important issues visible in Chopin‟s work, due to the fact that I simply cannot give them proper attention in the space of this thesis. Among these are issues of race and ethnicity.
Race and ethnicity are undeniably important when discussing themes such as freedom and women‟s position – or, indeed, the very concept of “woman”. However, birds in particular are used primarily as representatives of white women in Chopin‟s works. Similarly, because the question of sexual
orientation is not primarily relevant in an analysis of Chopin‟s bird symbolism, it will not be addressed with any depth in the limited space of this thesis, even though it is obviously relevant to an examination of sex and gender. For brevity‟s sake I will not repeat all the qualifiers every time, but it must be
emphasized that when referring to women, femininity and women‟s experiences in this thesis, I in fact refer to a certain, limited group of women: wealthy, middle and upper middle-class, white, heterosexual Anglo-Saxon and Creole women, most of whom live in the United States. Fortunately, issues of race and ethnicity, for example, have not been ignored in the scholarly writing on Chopin, but have been addressed by many scholars, such as David Russell in his article “A Vision of Reunion: Kate Chopin‟s At Fault” (2008). Issues of sexual orientation have also been addressed: Thomas F. Haddox examines the question of homosexuality in relation to religion in particular in his book Fears and Fascinations:
Representing Catholicism in the American South (2005), where he analyzes Chopin‟s fiction, among several other writers. I will, then, focus especially on the types of women and femininity that are recurrently represented by birds in Chopin‟s fiction.
2. Theoretical Framework
In this chapter I will present my central background theories and concepts. Birds are in my view used in Chopin‟s fiction to describe and criticize women‟s position. Therefore, I will use feminist theories in analyzing birds in Chopin‟s fiction. I will begin in 2.1 by discussing gender in general; first, I will introduce one of the central concepts for this thesis, the sex/gender system. I will continue by providing a sense of the late Victorian society and values and the cultural contexts for Chopin‟s writing inasmuch as they are essential for an understanding of why she would address the issue of women‟s containment.
I intend to place her writing in the context of women‟s criticism of their position and their attempts to gain more independence and recognition as fully capable individuals in the United States in the 19th century. This includes issues like women‟s position in marriage, legal and citizenship status, possibilities for education and rights with regard to property.
In 2.2 I will move on to discuss binary oppositions and their hierarchical structures. For me, binary opposition is a theoretical concept that can be used for an analysis of both Kate Chopin‟s works and the society of her time. Some of the most important dichotomies for this thesis are the pairs man/woman and culture/nature. These are particularly important for me, because they link directly to my analysis of the bird symbolism in Chopin‟s work. In 2.2 I will also give an outline of birds as a symbol in Western culture, focusing especially on those aspects of their symbolic meaning that occur and are used in the texts I will analyze in chapters 3 and 4.
2.1 The Sex/Gender System and Women’s Position in the Victorian Society
The tendency to see men and women as categorically different from each other, and even as opposites of each other, has been very common in Western thinking. Many cultural assumptions have been connected with the biological differences between the sexes and assumed as stemming from them. This
is why it is central in feminism to attempt at distinguishing between biological and cultural factors in relation to definitions of what it is to be a woman, and attempts have been made towards that end for decades. Biological determinism – the assumption that the biological makeup of a person
predetermines every aspect of their being – was opposed, for example, by Virginia Woolf as early as in the 1920‟s. Similarly, the separation of biological and social factors, and an envisioning of the
constructed nature of gender, is evident in Simone de Beauvoir‟s famous notion that “[o]ne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (295).
In 1975, American anthropologist Gayle Rubin created her well known and influential theory of the sex/gender system, in order to point out that women‟s oppression is not inevitable but a culturally bound phenomenon (Rubin, 158-159). Rubin created her theory as a part of the current discussion around theories of patriarchy. These theories were criticized for assuming that women‟s oppression is universal and thus failing to take into account historical and social variations, and differences in women‟s situations caused by race and class, for example. The sex/gender system was intended as a more flexible theory, which would take cultural variables into account. Sex, in Rubin‟s system, refers to the biological need and ability to reproduce, and gender, on the other hand, is the product of the social organization of this biological sexuality (Rubin, 159). According to Rubin, all societies have a sex/gender system by which they organize biological sexuality (165). Even though Rubin‟s theory was not completely without contradictions, as Marianne Liljeström points out in her article (113), it has been an influential starting point in attempting to differentiate between biological and social factors.
The idea of separating biological and cultural aspects of sexual difference has become widespread and could be said to color all scholarly thinking around sex. Toril Moi, too, has presented a view close to the sex/gender system (206-210). She refers to two separate but interlinked terms, female and feminine, which are widely used by feminist scholars to separate between biological and cultural factors. In this view, female represents the “purely biological aspects of sexual difference” (209).
Feminine, on the other hand, is viewed by Moi as representing the social construct, that is, “patterns of
sexuality and behavior imposed by cultural and social norms” (209). Thus femaleness refers to biological sex and femininity to the characteristics that people of the female sex are expected or supposed to have. In patriarchal thinking these two are merged and confused with each other, so that femaleness is necessarily characterized by femininity and femininity always follows from femaleness.
As Moi states:
…patriarchal oppression consists of imposing certain social standards of femininity on all biological women, in order precisely to make us believe that the chosen standards for
„femininity‟ are natural. Thus a woman who refuses to conform can be labeled both unfeminine and unnatural (209, italics in the original).
To Moi, then, it is an important goal in feminism to disentangle these two and to counteract “[t]he patriarchal strategy of collapsing the feminine into the female” (217).
With this way of thinking as well, there is a danger of falling into the traditional binary logic of male/female, masculine/feminine, as Moi states (210). In fact, the idea of sex/gender or
female/feminine is itself an example of binary thinking – allowing only two alternatives that are mutually exclusive – and it relates closely to the traditional culture/nature dichotomy (compare Bock, 7-8; Liljeström, 115). Assuming that a clear-cut separation between nature and culture in gender identities can be made is in itself suspect, as it is very difficult to determine what exactly is nature or biological and what is cultural.
It is, in fact, dangerous to assume that anything, even sex or femaleness is purely or absolutely biological. It can be argued that there is no such thing as pure biology, as poststructuralist critic Judith Butler effectively does in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1999), pointing out that the very act of identifying and naming the sexes and creating two distinct categories is already a markedly cultural act (11). According to Butler, then, both sex and gender are, in fact, cultural constructs (Butler, 10-11). One of them is, perhaps, merely more openly cultural than the other. If such a view is adopted, the division between sex and gender begins to lose its usefulness.
While Butler‟s criticism of the sex-gender division is to the point and the considerations voiced by her should definitely be borne in mind while examining sex and gender, the sex/gender division remains useful. Even if labels such as woman and man may not be “natural” or “purely biological”, I would argue that there does remain nature that is free of culture, and something that is purely biological even in human beings. This being said, it must be noted that it may never be possible to attain this
“pure” nature or biology in human thinking, which is always necessarily permeated by language and therefore by culture. As Butler points out, all categorizations and conceptualizations of natural or biological phenomena are inevitably cultural (11-12).
It must be accepted that all labels and classifications are cultural constructs, but this does not necessarily mean that all classifications are evil. It may, for example, make sense to divide humankind into two with respect to reproductive functions1 in the context of reproduction. What is highly
problematic is if the division based on reproductive functions is extended to cover any other areas of life than reproduction, or if the importance of reproduction is exaggerated. Obviously, it is also highly questionable to use reproductive functions or reproduction as a justification for discrimination of any kind. The classification based on reproductive functions has most certainly been used wrongly, and serves as an example of why it is necessary to be careful with and critical of classifications. There is,
1By reproductive function I refer solely to the ability/potential for producing sperm or ova, and related to the ability to produce ova, the capacity to sustain the life of the fetus until it is developed enough to live outside the womb. At the moment these cells cannot, to my knowledge, be produced artificially, nor do I know of people who could fully perform both the reproductive functions as defined above. Thus a division into two based on reproductive functions may in some situations be justifiable, so long as it is restricted to the context of reproduction. Reproductive function, as I use the term, has nothing to do with sexual orientations, sexuality in general, or intercourse. Reproduction is not the sole or even the most important incentive for most sexual relationships today in the Western world, regardless of the gender of the participants – in many relationships it is an undesirable outcome. Indeed, with modern technology, reproduction and sexuality need not be related at all: while the two types of cells need to be in interaction in order for reproduction to occur, the people who produce them do not, and with contraceptives, on the other hand, heterosexual intercourse need not result in reproduction.
To avoid misunderstanding, I would like to point out that in my view reproduction and parenting are not, and should not be, limited only to couples who can produce offspring together without assistance. With techniques like artificial insemination and surrogate mothers, as well as adoption, homosexual couples, single parents and heterosexual couples who for one reason or other cannot have children together, can become parents, and there is nothing morally questionable in that.
Furthermore, while reproduction of some kind is admittedly necessary if the existence of the human species is to be continued, its significance should not be overly emphasized, at the cost of other, important aspects of human life. This is especially true today, as the world is already rather over-populated. I view reproduction a privilege rather than a duty – people who want children should be able to have them regardless of nationality, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation or relationship status, and on the other hand, people who do not want to have children should not feel any pressure to have them, whatever their reason for this choice is.
for example, little sense in assuming that humankind can be divided into two with respect to their level of activity, for example, and far less sense in assuming that such characteristics are somehow a result of the individuals‟ reproductive functions. Furthermore, it is dangerous to assume that social behaviors such as nurturing or parenting arise automatically out of a given reproductive function. Male parents are capable of taking care of children – and according to Rubin, in some cultures men have traditionally performed child-care tasks (178). Similarly, women who are biologically not able to have children can make excellent mothers. In fact, in some cultures, biological motherhood has not led to being the primary caretaker of the children. This is true, for example, of the ancient Roman culture, where the biological mother was a distant figure, more a teacher and discipliner of the children than a nurturer, which was a role reserved for nursemaids, whenever one could be afforded (Salisbury and Kersten, 25).
Irigaray, too, sharply criticizes the assumption that a maternal role automatically arises out of a given sex or sexual function. For example, in her analysis of Freud‟s views of sexual difference Irigaray makes the following statement:
Moreover, zoology casts doubt on the idea that “rearing and caring for the young” are specifically female functions. “In quite high species we find that the sexes share the task of caring for the young between them or even that the male alone devotes himself to it” (p.
115). Is the necessary conclusion, then, that such animals are more able than you, than we, to distinguish bet[w]een the sexual function and the parental function? And notably that they at least notice the distinction between female and maternal, between female sexuality and mothering, a distinction that “culture” might perhaps have effaced? (16, italics in the original)
It is for the reasons mentioned above that I find the sex/gender system to be relevant even after Butler‟s apt criticism of it. The effects of culture are present in all human thinking around that which is called natural or biological, but those effects can and should be critically analyzed; even though, or perhaps because, biology and cultural assumptions cannot be entirely separated, the connections and interaction between them require examination. The sex/gender system can be used as an effective tool
for such examination. Even if it is not a perfect tool and it is important to be aware of its limitations, there are, after all, no concepts or theories to replace it which would be entirely free of culture.
Butler has also criticized the traditional sex/gender division for assuming that there are only two of both sexes and genders and that the connection between sex and gender is clear and linear, so that the same gender always arises from a given sex (11-12). There is, then, no real option of creating a
masculine gender from a female sex or vice versa. If the sex/gender division is used and understood in this way, it is indeed of no real use either in determining between cultural and biological factors or in disentangling between female and feminine, which is what Moi calls for. This danger of reflecting sex straightforwardly in gender is definitely a real one; however, in my view, it can be avoided. There is no necessity for assuming that there are only two genders. Gender has at least a potential for being viewed as a more flexible and inclusive concept than sex. This flexibility seems to be recognized in Rubin‟s thinking as well, at least to some extent, for example in her considerations of sexual division of labor (178). Rubin argues that division of labor is a key element in creating gender. As she points out, what is viewed as women‟s work and men‟s work varies greatly from one culture to another. Gender is not universal then, and even though Rubin does seem to assume that in each culture there are only two mutually exclusive genders, her thinking allows for the existence of other alternatives. Gender is indeed built on sex in her thinking, but it does not “naturally” or automatically arise out of it.
The sex/gender division can be used fruitfully in examining the society and people‟s status and functions in it, as can the idea of binary oppositions, which I will examine in more detail in 2.2. The assumption that a person‟s sex defines their capacities and can be used legitimately to define their proper place in society was dominant in the 19th century. According to several scholars, women‟s capacity for motherhood was viewed as their central feature, which dominated their social functions, and women‟s lives were strongly restricted to the private sphere (see for example, Bell and Offen, 137- 139).
One of the factors contributing to the creation of strictly separate spheres for men and women in the 19th century was certainly the change in men‟s working conditions, as noted in several sources
(Salisbury and Kersten, 28; Hall, 150-151; Dolgin, 25; Hellerstein et al., 118). In the industrial, urban setting, men‟s work often took them away from home for most of the day, unlike in the agrarian society of the past. This resulted in a starker contrast between home and work – at least for men – and in the home becoming an increasingly female front.
Indeed, Susan Bell and Karen Offen state that the idea of separate spheres for the sexes was used in Enlightenment thinking as a justification for not extending the rights that were viewed as unalienable for men, to women (18). Along with a focus on reason and the importance of knowledge,
Enlightenment ideas included individual rights, independent thinking and decision making as opposed to yielding to the established order and autocratic and arbitrary government. These ideas colored political thinking in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the United States as well as in Europe, but only in connection to men – which exclusion the women‟s rights movement resisted (Bell and Offen, 18). Women‟s rights movements resisted such an exclusion of women, with growing force, but the dominant view was still one that limited women to the domestic sphere: outside the political life, without many individual rights or much possibility for independent decision-making.
The right to vote was central to the idea of people‟s independent decision-making, as it represented people choosing their government as opposed to blindly yielding to one. Women were, however, actively excluded from political life (Bell and Offen, 20). Not only were they not allowed to vote in the United States in the 19th century,2 but any political activity by women was reproved as unfeminine.
One such activity was public performance: according to Robyn Warhol, women were not, for example,
2 With the exception of a few states, where women were allowed to vote even in the 19th century. This was not without restrictions, however. Suffrage could be limited to only some elections (for example municipal suffrage) or a certain amount of property could be required as a prerequisite. It usually concerned only white, unmarried or widowed women.
Furthermore, before 1920, women‟s suffrage could be, and in some cases was, discontinued even in the states that had previously allowed it. In Louisiana and Missouri, which are the states most central both in Chopin‟s life and in her fiction, women did not have full suffrage before 1920.
supposed to speak publicly in front of mixed audiences in United States in the 19th century (159).3 Doing so endangered a woman‟s feminine reputation and would most likely result in her being harshly criticized and even publicly ridiculed, for example in cartoons (Warhol, 159-164). Furthermore, she would likely be presented as masculine and unattractive. In 2.2 I will discuss binary oppositions and the normative images of proper gender performances that are created through them. The situation described by Warhol is a perfect example of how such images function: as a result of claiming a politically active position that was reserved solely for men, a woman would be viewed as ceasing to be a woman. It is clear, then, that the possibilities of women‟s active and direct participation in the public sphere and politics were limited in the 19th century.
Women‟s legal status, in general, was poor in the United States in the 19th century, especially if they were married. According to the institution of coverture, a woman ceased to be a separate
individual when she married, in many ways: she could not own property, enter into contract and sue or be sued. In short, she was no longer a legal person of her own. Her identity was subsumed into that of her husband (Hall, 35). The principle of coverture, although in a somewhat attenuated form, was dominant in the early 19th century, and it was against this that the later developments should be considered. A key improvement in women‟s position achieved in the United States in the 19th century was property protection in the form of the Married Women‟s Property Acts (Hall, 159-160). These acts gave women some financial security in marriage, essentially protection against their husbands‟ debts.
The third wave of Married Women‟s Property Acts in the latter half of the 19th century even gave protection to women‟s earnings that were acquired during marriage and allowed her control over these assets. This, however, did not mean equality between husband and wife. While some of the
improvements to women‟s position made in the 19th century did interfere with coverture, the basic
3 With the exception of Quaker women who were allowed to be present and speak in religious gatherings and in some cases even act as religious leaders (Flexner, 71-72). Even Quaker women were not, however, spared from public reproof when they attempted to extend this practice and, for example, actively participate in the anti-slavery movement (Bell and Offen, 135; Flexner, 71).
assumption of men as both the defining and the controlling party in a marriage remained (Hall, 159- 160). Furthermore, according to Kermit Hall, “[women‟s] new position depended almost entirely on social assumptions that were translated into a special legal status rather than on any underlying belief that as a matter of human right they should be equal before the law with men” (167).
There were also great differences in the legal status of women from state to state. Women‟s position did improve considerably in many states during the 19th century, but this was not the case everywhere. According to Eleanor Flexner, who describes the situation at the beginning of the 20th century, “[i]n general the area of greatest backwardness continued to be in the South, where economic recovery from the Civil War had been slow and proportionately fewer women were working for their own living” (229-230). Flexner states that in Louisiana married women‟s property rights remained minimal: “the discriminatory provisions of French dominion were still in full force: a married woman did not even have legal title to the clothes she wore” (230). In analyzing Chopin‟s fiction it is the situation in the South and especially in the state of Louisiana that is of interest, as these are the areas where she lived and where most of her stories are situated.
Women‟s legal position did improve in the 19th century, for example through the Married Women‟s Property Acts. Nevertheless, women continued to be both viewed and positioned as second rate citizens – if considered citizens at all. Women‟s exclusion from political decision-making remained implicit until the late 1860‟s: according to Bell and Offen, the belief that maleness was a prerequisite for national citizenship was formally asserted at law in 1869 in the United States (365). On the one hand, this was a clear sign of women‟s lower position and status, but on the other hand, it was beneficial to the women‟s rights movement: the previously implicit assumption was now made explicit and thus became easier to campaign against (Bell and Offen, 365-366).
Women‟s right to work and gain material independence became an issue in the 1830‟s, for the first time in the United States (Bell and Offen, 135). The number of women working outside the home increased considerably during the century (Flexner, 230). This threatened the economic foundation of
male authority in marriage and the separation of the sexual spheres (Bell and Offen, 135). In this discussion, material independence was often linked to sexual behavior. Advocates for the former were commonly accused of promoting sexual promiscuity, which was perceived as a direct result of
women‟s financial independence. Thus, the connection between women‟s freedom in general and sexual freedom became a central issue as well in the 19th century women‟s rights debate. It became necessary for advocates of women‟s emancipation to address the issue of female sexuality, and varying opinions on the topic were voiced: some women insisted on their own “respectability”, some demanded for a single standard for both sexes and some claimed sexual freedom was entirely unrelated to their agenda (Bell and Offen, 135-136). The discussion on women‟s financial and sexual freedom is related to Chopin‟s work, and she could even be perceived as addressing the issue: Edna Pontellier, the protagonist of Chopin‟s best known novel, The Awakening, does not settle for only some aspects of freedom but tries to achieve complete freedom, including sexual freedom.
Another issue that was raised by many participants in the growing women‟s rights movement in the 19th century was women‟s education. Initially, the need for it was often justified by women‟s maternal duties: even though they were not supposed to be politically active citizens themselves, they were expected to raise ones, and this, as the argument ran, required some degree of learning (Bell and Offen, 137). Women were also increasingly involved in work outside the home, not only in the growing industry, but as teachers and governesses as well (Flexner, 24). These new duties outside the woman‟s proper sphere required that women, too, be educated more broadly than before (Flexner, 23-24; Bell and Offen, 138). Women‟s education was promoted strongly by several individual women who founded institutions aimed at providing girls with better education. One of these was Emma Willard‟s Troy Female Seminary, which opened in 1821 and was radical enough to include physiology in its course of study. Women‟s education was, however, far from being comparable to that available for men (Flexner, 26). There were only few institutions that provided teaching beyond elementary level, and their quality varied greatly. The schools were often run by self-educated women, who had to study
while teaching and work hard to find financial support for their efforts (Flexner, 28-29). Even if sufficient funding could be raised, the schools were very vulnerable, as their operation usually
depended upon private supporters, whose death or loss of interest in the cause would lead to the schools being closed (Flexner, 32).
Toward the turn of the century arguments were increasingly made that women had potential and right for intellectual development similarly as men, and higher education should be available to women as well (Flexner, 232). This idea was linked to women demanding access to the professions, such as medicine (Bell and Offen, 364). Flexner mentions two institutions that paved the way for women‟s colleges in the early 19th century, Oberlin and Mount Holyoke (29-36). Several colleges for women were founded during the latter half of the century, such as Vassar, Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr (Flexner, 31). Bryn Mawr is mentioned by Flexner to have been of particularly good academic quality, and it was the first to offer resident fellowships to women who wanted to pursue graduate studies and carry on higher research work (234). In the late 19th century women were also allowed to participate, at least to some extent, in studies organized by some colleges traditionally reserved for men, such as Harvard – even though this created heated opposition, much more so than the colleges intended only for women (Flexner, 233; Bell and Offen, 361).
All across the United States, the level of a girl‟s education was greatly dependent on the wealth and open-mindedness of her parents. However, there were noticeable regional differences in the education of girls and women. According to Flexner, “education among women was still largely confined to the school level…” in the South even at the beginning of the 20th century (229-230). There were only few institutions that provided any education more advanced than that in the South and Flexner states that even these were not of high quality (94). Furthermore, in the South, people‟s attitudes were more conservative than elsewhere in the United States, and parents were less interested in their daughters‟
education (Flexner, 94-95). In any case, women‟s possibilities and right for intellectual self-fulfillment certainly became a topic of debate in the 19th century.
Women‟s position in both the society at large and in the family was decidedly subordinate in the United States in the 19th century. Criticizing the situation had negative repercussions and changing it was not easy, since it meant challenging views that were deeply rooted, ratified by law and intertwined with religious beliefs. This does not mean, however, that all women remained silent or played by the rules. Even in the late 18th century, equality between the sexes was demanded by Judith Sargent Murray, who wrote essays, plays, poetry and letters. Similarly, Abigail Adams‟ letters testify of her decisive efforts to convince the political decision-makers to improve especially married women‟s position. Women were not merely victims, but many women advocated their cause actively and eloquently even before the 19th century. This resistance to the patriarchal order increased considerably in the 19th century, despite the possible consequences. Women‟s suffrage in the United States, for example, was argued for in the United States since 1848 by many women writers and speakers, such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Jenks Bloomer – to mention only few of the numerous women who participated in the women‟s suffrage movement and had to endure both physical and psychological hardships for it. Essentialist views of women, presented by Rousseau, for example, were also strongly objected to (Bell and Offen, 19-20). Women‟s position was clearly not a self-evident matter, as it continued to be a central topic of public dispute in the 19th century. Therefore, it is not surprising that such a radical work as The Awakening could be written. It is important to note that women are not mere passive victims in Chopin‟s work, as they were not mere passive victims in the society of her time. While there are restrictions to the female characters‟ existence and self-expression, they nonetheless do try to change their environment and are active in their own lives – like the birds in Chopin‟s fiction, these characters do make noise, instead of remaining contentedly in their cages.
2.2 Binary Oppositions and Bird Symbolism
Along with the sex/gender system, another key concept in my analysis of bird symbolism in Chopin‟s work is binary oppositions. I will utilize especially Hélène Cixous‟ feminist ideas on binary
oppositions, which are based on the thinking of Jacques Derrida. This is useful in an analysis of Chopin‟s birds because the dichotomies of male/female and culture/nature are central to many images of birds, especially those of the caged birds, as are other dichotomies that are linked to these two, such as soul/body, voice/silence and activity/passivity.
The bird images are used in Chopin‟s work to comment on the traditional thinking around the dichotomies that connects women with, for example, nature, the body, silence and passivity, as
opposed to culture, the soul, sound and activity which are connected with men. Chopin breaks some of the connections between different dichotomies, especially their underlying relation to the man/woman opposition. Using birds as a symbol for women is central in this respect. While birds are linked to nature, and hence, as a symbol of women, uphold the traditional connection between women and nature, they are also strongly connected with the soul. Thus the use of birds as a symbol for women breaks the traditional connection between women and the body. Even more importantly, however, Chopin challenges the hierarchy that is behind these concepts and their binary organization.
The French poststructuralist feminist scholar, Hélène Cixous, has applied the idea of binary
oppositions to feminist thinking in a book she wrote with Catherine Clément, The Newly Born Woman (1986). According to Cixous, “thought has always worked through … dual, hierarchical oppositions”
(63-64). This hierarchical, dual logic can be seen everywhere in Western culture: as Cixous argues, it is visible in myths, legends, philosophical systems, literature and criticism (63-64). Some of the binary oppositions recognized by Cixous are:
Activity/Passivity Sun/Moon
Culture/Nature Day/Night Father/Mother Head/Heart
Intelligible/Palpable Logos/Pathos Speaking/Writing Parole/Écriture High/Low (63)
According to Cixous, all the binary pairs that can be identified, including the ones she mentions and that I quoted above, can be connected to the underlying dichotomy man/woman (64). Accordingly, the binary pairs she mentions in her text are situated under the heading “Where is she?” (63) – suggesting that the pairs should be examined in connection to the sexes. As the title implies, femininity is always linked with one of the concepts in each pair, and by locating femininity in each pair, a certain pattern emerges. Indeed, Cixous states that “[l]ogocentrism subjects thought – all concepts, codes and values – to a binary system, related to „the‟ couple, man/woman” (Cixous, 64). The term logocentrism was introduced by Derrida in De la Grammatologie (1967), and it refers to the idea that all words, writings and systems of thought are fixed and validated by something external, an authority, or centre, whose meaning they convey. Logocentrism is, then, focused on the origin of meaning; the origin is often perceived as divine (theologocentrism) and/or male (phallogocentrism). This is why questioning and contesting logocentrism is of interest to feminists.
Along with pointing out other binary pairs‟ connection to the dichotomy man/woman, Cixous‟
statement which I quoted above implies that the connections between different concept pairs are not random, but form a coherent system (64). In this system consisting of pairs of concepts that are all linked to sex, an image of femininity is produced. It is created from the binary opposition man/woman and other pairs, such as activity/passivity, culture/nature and soul/body. All the other pairs are
connected to man/woman, as one half in each pair is connected to femininity and the other to
masculinity. Thus the concepts can be rearranged as a chain in order to show how they function to create an image of femininity and masculinity: woman-passive-nature-body and man-active-culture- soul. Through the connections between different pairs, this system links women, for example, strongly with passivity, then, and is normative. Indeed, according to Cixous, sexual difference is most strongly coupled with the opposition activity/passivity, so that passivity becomes a key concept in defining femininity: “[e]ither a woman is passive, or she does not exist” (64). According to Cixous the strong connection between women and passivity can be detected, for example, throughout the history of philosophy (64). It is also normative, to the extent that a woman‟s failure to be passive leads to her being viewed as not really a woman at all – and since she cannot be a man either, she effectively becomes nothing, if she does not conform to this definition of femininity (64).
The tendency to link passivity to women is recognized by Luce Irigaray, as well. In her analysis and criticism of Sigmund Freud‟s thinking in Speculum of the Other Woman (1985), Irigaray traces the age-old connection between activity/passivity and man/woman and finds that it stems from ideas of the behavior of the sexual organisms, sperm and ovum. This idea has then been used to describe male and female individuals‟ behavior during intercourse and further extended from that to several other areas of everyday life and human psychology (15-16). This kind of thinking is crippling for both sexes, as it not only assimilates femininity with passivity and lack of desire, but also connects masculinity with
aggression (Irigaray, 15).
The activity/passivity pair has indeed been central in defining sexual difference. However, the pattern presented by Cixous, a pattern where normative image of femininity is created through a connection between two sets of binary opposites can be detected in several other concept pairs as well, pairs which are connected to the couple man/woman. Cixous focuses especially on the connection between femininity and passivity, but other, similar connections can be found as well. As Gisela Bock argues, the same rule applies to the pair rational/emotional, for example, and she, too, acknowledges the normative nature of binary oppositions:
When, for instance, gender is constructed on a model of mutually exclusive, binary opposites, if men are defined as rational, then women are defined by an absence of rationality. In this construction, for the woman to take on rationality is for her to begin to assimilate to the male norm and thus begin to cease to be a woman. (6)
The binary relationship, however, is recognized by Bock as an artificial construction. According to her, most of the dichotomies are not real. Within the binary framework the concepts in each pair are viewed and constructed as mutually exclusive opposites, but in fact, the concepts may coexist with each other (6). Emotional involvement in or responses to situations do not rule out rational behavior, for example, even though binary logic does not recognize such a possibility. Furthermore, the dichotomies even allow for third concepts, that is, alternatives to the dichotomous attributions (Bock, 6). The
oppositeness of the concepts in each pair is also, in most cases, illusory: for instance, women and men have more in common with each other than with anything else. While the physical differences between the sexes have often been highlighted, for example, there are, in fact, no animals or plants on Earth that would physically resemble human females more closely than human males. Binary thinking is not necessarily based on natural or real differences, then. Instead, the differences, the oppositeness and the mutual exclusiveness are constructed, created, within this framework of thought, for its purposes.
However, even if the binary oppositions are artificial, they still tend to guide human thinking, and have contributed much to the image of women as, for example, emotional rather than rational, natural rather than cultural and bodily rather than intellectual or spiritual. This idea presented by both Cixous and Bock, that a normative image of women, a feminine ideal, is created through a series of binary oppositions and that this image must be met by women if they wish to be viewed as feminine or proper women by society is clearly present in Chopin‟s production. I will discuss the idea in more detail in my analysis of The Awakening and women artists in the novel in 4.2.
It is significant that all of the binary oppositions mentioned by Cixous, Bock and Irigaray are related to sex/gender and thus function to form an image of ideal femininity and masculinity.
Furthermore, it is important to notice that the concepts in each pair are not equal,4 but one of them always tends to be subjected to the other. There exists a continuous battle within the pair, and it is through this battle that the hierarchical relationship of the concepts is created (Cixous, 64). Each pair is a battlefield of sorts, a site of a “struggle for signifying supremacy” as Toril Moi aptly describes it (211). Under patriarchy,5 the concept that wins this battle and is deemed better is always the one that is connected with masculinity (Cixous, 64). All of the pairs are, then, related to the pair superior/inferior, and there exists a clear valuing of one as the better in each pair (Cixous, 63-64). This feature is
recognized by Bock, too, who states that “[t]he underlying assumption of mutually exclusive
superiority and inferiority seems to be another common feature of such gender-linked dichotomies [like culture/nature]” (4). Thus, the logic of binary oppositions is not only dualistic and related to
sex/gender, but hierarchical as well.
As implied by the idea of battle, the relationship of the concepts that are placed as opposites of each other is not static. Furthermore, the meanings of the concepts are in a constant state of flux. Within the binary system, it is only through each other that the two concepts in each pair acquire meaning. When they are set up as opposites of each other, they are defined through each other – especially so that the concept that is viewed as inferior is defined as lacking the features of the superior concept.6 However, it does work both ways: neither of the concepts would exist in the same form without the other concept.
As Bock states, referring to the culture/nature dichotomy: “no such nature without such culture, and no such culture without such nature” (2). The dichotomies are not universal and the meanings and
relationships of the concepts are not fixed, but dynamic and open to change.
4 I use the term equal to refer to concepts or individuals that are attributed the same value, rather than to concepts and individuals deemed as the same or treated in exactly the same way. In my use, equality allows for difference: equal
treatment refers to similarly appreciative and fair treatment to all, rather than to the same treatment for all regardless of their individual needs. I appreciate the problems that arise from the mathematical and abstract use of equal meaning „the same‟, which have been recognized by many feminist scholars. However, since there seems to be no better word to replace it in the meaning „of same value‟, I shall nevertheless use it.
5 In current feminist criticism and gender studies, the term hegemonic masculinity is often preferred, but for practical reasons I shall use the older term patriarchy in this thesis.
6 The idea of femininity having been defined as lack is discussed further by Cixous in The Newly Born Woman and Irigaray in her discussion on Freud in Speculum of the Other Woman.
One of the most important concept pairs for this thesis is culture/nature. The relation of culture and nature in human development as well as in art was a relevant topic in Chopin‟s time, and the
culture/nature dichotomy is clearly present in Chopin‟s texts as well. It is especially visible when tame or cultivated nature is contrasted with wild nature. This is the case for example when characters‟
reactions and behavior vary in different surroundings ranging from cities and the indoors in houses, to porches, where some natural elements intrude, and further, to the tame nature of fields or gardens and eventually to completely wild forests or swamps. Such passages often question the absoluteness of the dichotomy, and the position of human beings in it. It is, however, the bird scenes in Chopin‟s fiction that are of particular interest for a feminist reading. They, too, discuss the binary pair culture/nature, but unlike many other images, they also clearly address the connection of this binary pair to the pair man/woman. I shall elaborate on exactly how and to what effect this is done in Chopin‟s work in my analysis chapters, especially in 3.1.
To understand why Chopin would want to address and criticize the issue of women‟s assimilation with nature, it is important to understand what kind of an effect it had on the image and lives of women in the 19th century. The tendency to connect women to nature is age-old and can be detected even in ancient mythologies, where most deities related to nature are female, especially those related to
fertility. Women‟s connection with nature is strongly linked to their being viewed as essentially bodily.
It arises out of, and strengthens ideas of reproduction as the main function of women in society.
Women‟s connection with nature and the body has resulted in strong images of femininity as essentially related to sexuality, pregnancy, motherhood, nursing and caring (Bock, 2). Bock is by no means the first to point out and criticize the tendency to link women to the body and the repercussions of doing so. Women‟s definition through their bodies and the resulting over-sexualization in society was criticized heavily by Mary Wollstonecraft in the 18th century. According to her, the male
dominated society actively forms women into frivolous beings by assuming that their only function in society is to attract and please men, to be objects of desire (98). One of the philosophers that
Wollstonecraft accuses of this kind of thinking is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom she states performs
“the philosophy of lasciviousness” with respect to analyzing sexual difference, as he assumes that women‟s only function in society is sex (52). Wollstonecraft herself does strongly emphasize women‟s maternal role, and is not radical in this sense. However, she does not perceive motherhood as
essentially biological and instead highlights its cultural significance. It is nonetheless significant that she challenges the social discourses in which women are connected (only) with nature and the body.
Women‟s assimilation with nature has been a clear source for inequality. It has been one of the justifications for leaving women out of political decision-making and is strongly related to the creation and attempts to maintain the idea of a separate sphere for women. It has also led to women being invisible in many ways. This invisibility is described by Bock as follows:
Men and their activities [have been] seen as culture and of cultural value, whereas women and their activities [have been] seen as natural, outside of history and society, always the same and therefore not worthy of scholarly, political or theoretical interest and inquiry. (2)
Bock‟s statement of women‟s invisibility, which is based on their relation to nature, relates clearly to another feature in Chopin‟s bird imagery, one that again addresses another binary pair of opposites:
voice/silence. In Chopin‟s work it is clearly significant whether the birds are silent or noisy, and here as well she clearly questions the validity of the image created of women through the series of binary oppositions – in this case, their connection with silence, along with passivity. I will discuss this in more detail in chapter 4.2.
Criticism of women‟s connection to nature is still relevant today, as the invisibility described by Bock is not only a matter of the past. Although ameliorated, there still remains a tendency to ignore women, for example in history writing, unless it is in works that are specifically focused on women – and state so, often in the very name of the book or article. A quick search in basically any library database can be used to exemplify this: in both public and scientific libraries one is likely, even today, to find many times more results by the search word women than by the search word men. Since this is
