Date of Award
2019
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Bradford, Adam
Abstract
Kate Chopin’s stories including “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” “A Very Fine Fiddle” and “Azelie” are rich in subject-object relationships. Close text analysis helps explicate the power of these objects or things. A thing is animate and an object is not. The stockings, fiddle, and store objects are part of a transaction between things and people; what is an object to one character is a thing to another. Exploration of Victorian women and department stores illuminates how stockings overpower Mrs. Sommers. Research on share tenant life, violins’ value, and Louisiana mixed ancestry reveals how the fiddle enables Fifine and Cleophas to re-imagine their identities and cross social boundaries; similarly, “authentic woman” feminist theory highlights how objects affect Azelie’s agency. Functioning atypically, stockings, a fiddle, and store items become things and not just objects. Things invite Chopin’s characters to embrace uncertainty. We are in things and things are in us.
Extent
71 p.
Recommended Citation
Moldow, Susan, "Animate Things and Their Empowered Women in Kate Chopin’s “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” “A Very Fine Fiddle” and “Azelie”" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019. 2099.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_6/2099
Identifier
FA00013244
Comments
Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.