Female freedom fighters: The impact of Kate Chopin's The awakening and Edith Wharton's The house of mirth on the American suicide discourse from 1870-1900

Abstract

Chapter one traces the discussion of suicide that was taking place in America between the years 1870-1900. Some psychologists attributed suicide to insanity and imitation, while others ascribed the act of suicide to those individuals with an intelligent disposition. Other theorists, however, saw the act itself as being in direct connection with social consciousness and the plight of women. Chapter two takes up Kate Chopin's The Awakening, published in 1899, as a response to this conversation over women who take their own lives, contending that a woman commits the act of suicide not because, as American society suggested between 1870 and 1900, she is insane or imitating others, but for reasons that apply to her female protagonist, Edna Pontellier, an individual woman trapped in a confining culture. Chapter three demonstrates the extent to which Edith Wharton, in 1905, further adds to Chopin's foray into the discourse on suicide. Lily Bart, in The House of Mirth, like Edna, establishes herself as a woman who refuses to fit the mold in which New York society would place her. Through this rejection, Lily, like Edna, establishes herself throughout the novel as an independent woman, and, in the end, Lily, too, commits suicide in an act of free will and sound mind to escape the misery her society forces on her.

Date of Award	2008
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Robin L. Murray (Supervisor)