Kate Chopin and Local Color
The background setting of most of Chopin's stories is the Creole culture of southern Louisiana. Southern Louisiana was far more French than American as a large portion of the culture was Creole -- those being the descendants of French and Spanish colonists.
This Creole society was united in its Catholicism, and the French language and therefore became a "cultural subgroup which had little in common with, [and] was often in conflict with, Anglo-American society" (Walker, 97). This region of Louisiana was referred to as a "Southern Babylon" (Walker, 97). And it was this backdrop of society that Chopin used in her work which earned her the label of being a local-colorist.
Consequently the term local-color is generally "taken to mean that the work has only a narrow appeal as a "novelty= piece" and are "noted more for skillful regional description than for insight into human nature" (Bourn). One common characteristic of the local color movement is the intermixing of the languages of the area, being in Chopin's stories: English and French. Yet the use of dialect, also being part of the realist tradition, "reveal[s] the various ethnic groups and ... provide[s] some regional color" (The New Laurel Review). The use of language is important to Chopin's character's status in society: for example, the higher up the character's status is the less his/her accent is discernible; while the "'lowest'" character in the story, speaks an exaggerated mix of Creole dialect and black dialect" (Bourn). However the "dialect [used] does not become a central focus obscuring the more imaginative aspects of [Chopin's] stories" (The New Laurel Review). Yet Chopin surpasses the limitations set by the local color movement, such as being novelty pieces and having a narrow appeal, because the ethnic characters that she creates "are individuals first and members of a race or nationality second" (The New Laurel Review). Chopin is "not [there] just to record the lives of people in an area, but to show how people in these places encounter and deal with issues that have universal value" (Bourn). And therefore, in direct contrast to "a local color novel ... [being] one in which the identity of the setting is integral to the very unfolding of the theme, rather than simply incidental to a theme that could as well be set anywhere" (May, 216).
Grand Isle, a town in Louisiana, and New Orleans, a city in Louisiana. For Chopin’s life, a
The American composer and pianist, Louis-Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 1869), was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, one of the most culturally diverse areas in America during his time. His father, Edward Gottschalk, was of German-Jewish heritage, and his mother, Aimée de Bruslé, was a Creole of French-Roman Catholic background. The Bruslé family had fled from Haiti to New Orleans because of the rising slave rebellion. Also, his maternal Grandmother Bruslé and Sally, her African-American nurse, were originally from Saint-Dominque. The cultures of Gottschalk’s family resulted in his mixed heritage. His family background most likely triggered an interest in him to travel and tour many places during his musical career. He travelled to places including France, Switzerland, Spain, as well as the West Indies. All of the areas he visited influenced his music in some way.
Though the two differed in many ways, the were both chock full of musicality. A key difference between the two is the style of music they both held. New Orleans was a city of a multitude of musical styles, while Vienna remained a well known city for classical music. New Orleans streets would fill with parades and musical performs all over the city. As the documentary mentioned, after Louisiana became American controlled, an influx of newly freed African Americans began calling New Orleans their home. This brought on new styles of African and Caribbean music in addition to spiritual songs from the south. These new styles were not accepted by with upper class of New Orleans. White descendants of the French and Spanish who lived in New Orleans adopted the term “Creole” in order to distinguish themselves from the influx of new American’s for whom they disdained. Creole’s were classically trained and participated in local orchestras in New Orleans, lending to the multitude of musical styles of the city. Creoles soon became second class citizens along with blacks, and thus a new music was born. The influence of the Creoles classically trained music, along with the multitude of different styles, created a music of freedom and liberty. Together African Americans and creoles transformed music as it was known, creating jazz, a quintessential
In order for Canada to share an equal part in the overall media industry as any other country, Canadian content regulations must be in place. CanCon regulations should be enforced on Canadian media content, as it is a crucial aspect of national culture, representative of the country as a whole. Without such regulations determined by CanCon, Canadian society risks becoming lost within the commotion of international media and their varied interests.
In “Desiree Baby”, author, Chopin emphasizes racism by selecting certain words to symbolize the association between light and darkness, and the slaves on the plantation.
The background of both authors, which was from the South, we can conclude how they could described the situations that they faced such as political and social presumptions problems especially for women at that time. The story explains how Chopin wrote how women were to be "seen but not heard". "The wife cannot plead in her own name, without the authority of her husband, even though she should be a public
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. Documenting the American South: Chopin, Kate. Bayou Folk. Boston, 7 Nov. 2000. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Cambridge [Mass.]: The Riverside Press, 1894. Electronic Ed. http://docsouth.unc.edu/chopinbayou/menu.html
...ne major proponent that affected Aubigny’s outlook upon the African race was how his family name played in relation to the Southern culture. Another part that was analyzed was how Armand actually treated his slaves from making them forget how to be happy to him severely punishing them at the expense of his biracial child. Also in the context that his child was part African served as a catalyst for his change of heart from love to hate towards his wife which then terminated to his banishment of his wife and son. In the end of it all, the reader has seen the adverse and destructive effects that racism can have upon a select group of people and on society. From what Armand despised the most, was actually a part of him that he could never get rid of.
During the 12 years that she was married, Chopin spent 9 years in New Orleans and the following three years in Cloutierville in Natchitoches Parish (Inge, 3). She was an extremely unconventional woman for her era. Not only did she write about a forbidden subject, female sexuality, but she smoked cigarettes and would go on long walks through the streets of New Orleans by herself, both of which were not common practices during the nineteenth century (Inge, 3). Kate Chopin enjoyed the variety of cultures that surrounded her in Louisiana; she was involved in the lives of the wealthy Creoles and the poor sharecroppers.
Many of us never heard of Female Genital Mutilation until the story of Kauziya Kasinga, a woman from West Africa. Her father did not believe in polygamy, forced marriage, or "female circumcision". He died when she was 17 and the father's sister inherited the home, banished the mother, ended Fauziya's schooling, and arranged a marriage as a fourth wife to a man she had never met. The aunt scheduled her for the circumcision and she ran with 3,000 dollars that one of her aunts had saved.
Females as a general population have been faced with discrimination across the ages. In recent history, women have begun to assert their freedom and independence from the male oriented traditions that have spanned generations. In industrialized countries the discrimination of women has diminished, but a serious form of violation of human rights occurs sometimes in parts of the world, such as Africa, the Middle East, and even sometimes the United States and other industrialized countries in North America and Europe. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is an umbrella term for three subtypes of crimes committed against women as a part of various coming of age rituals for young girls in certain patriarchal communities in Africa, spreading through migration of a populace through Northeastern and Western Africa and some spread into the Middle Eastern countries. These communities integrated this practice into women through marriage into these cultures, spreading this practice into their daughters and so forth. FGM has been classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) into three basic subtypes, each growing more and more disturbing. Subtype number one is a clitoridectomy which is the complete or partial removal of the clitoris, while subtype two it includes the clitoridectomy plus the removal of the labia minora of the young girl. Alone, these two types of FGM composed approximately 90 percent of female genital mutilation. The third subtype is the most gruesome that is the narrowing the vagina opening by sealing the orifice with the use of the labia majora. These medical procedures have been described the WHO working in conjunction with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Un...
Female circumcision is viewed as a disgusting and barbaric act by a majority of people in first world countries. The United States has even gone as far as to get an international law made to ban female circumcision because of the harmful physical and psychological problems associated with it. In the “Female Genital Cutting Fact Sheet” created and reviewed by Caroline Banquet-Walsh, Sandra Jordan, and Francesca Moneta I discovered that female genital mutilation is an e...
Female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, is a practice that involves the removal of part or all of the female external genitalia. It occurs throughout the world, but most commonly in Africa where they say that it is a tradition and social custom to keep a young girl pure and a married woman faithful. But to some Westerners, the practice is viewed as being primitive and barbaric. We react with disgust and find it nearly incomprehensible that female genital mutilation can occur in the world today
In her stories "The Storm" and "The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin explores the theme of feminist women. The type of women in Kate Chopin’s stories would be considered protagonist women. Since the nineteenth century and today she has been explored more over time. Living in the south with family from French (Creole) with Irish background made it more interesting. Kate Chopin is a communal towards discrimination and sexual subtlety of the Cajun and Creole culture. Where she lived the majority of the time makes her one of the outstanding Southern fiction regionalist profound writer for feminist women.
In Searching for “Voices”: Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debates over Female Genital Operations, Walley discusses the social issues concerning female genital operations as perceived by “westerners”, as well as discusses her ethnographic account of female circumcision. Her main purpose of doing this was to lay the groundwork for “a more productive feminist and anthropological debate” capable of going beyond the binary terms in which female circumcisions are usually discussed. Since female circumcisions are known by a variety of names, such as female genital mutilation and female genital torture, and with her understanding of the negative connotation often associated with those varieties of names, Walley makes the decision to adopt the term female genital operations instead. In 1988, Walley went in the village of KiKhome, in western Kenya as an English teacher and immersed herself in the lives of the people living around the village to better understand the practice of female genital operations as an outsider. One day, some of her students invited her to assist at a female genital operation ceremony. She found out that the participants see circumcision as a rite of passage into adulthood. However, she truly wanted to know the participants’ personal views on the topic rather than the imposed views of their parents and their culture. The four women she interviewed told her that “their custom was good,” and it was something that a person needs to accept with her whole being not to feel the pain. Nevertheless, some of the women told her that they would not want their daughters to undergo circumcision, and that they themselves regretted having done the procedure. Walley finally gave up “searching for real voices,” because what t...