COMPLETE STYLISTIC ANALYSIS
Kate
Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty is an American novelist and short-story writer. She is now considered by some to have been an advocate of the feminist authors of the 20th century, thought Chopin herself reported that she
was neither a feminist nor a suffragist she just wrote about women's issues she
saw during her lifetime. Kate Chopin is one of the earliest examples of modernism in
the United States. She was interested in the perspective, point of view, craft,
use of imagery, multiple perspectives just as much as the story itself. Her style was influenced by French writers Guy de Maupassant (she loved his economy of detail)
and Émile Zola (she was impressed by his determination to tell the truth); besides that, she often places her characters in a geographical and historical moment and
details their sometimes exotic speech patterns and cultural dispositions. Conclusively, Kate Chopin is known to be a woman ahead of her time.
Even though during her lifetime she was looked down upon for the things she wrote, she
is now celebrated and acclaimed by people around the world.
The title of the story “Regret” is thought-provoking and intriguing. A
reader understands, that it is about some kind of loss that caused the regret,
and starts wondering what exactly happened.
Setting of the story is presented in a general way. We don’t have
the exact location and can only assume, where the events take place. It is
likely the USA, but then it means that Mamzelle Aurlie, her cook and the mother
are of European origin (judging by the name and by the speech of these
characters – the speech reflects their dialect and includes French and German words
). The events in the analysed story happen in a big estate, where Mamzel Aurlie
(and perhaps also her workers) live. The house is described as “long and low”.
It is filled with laughing, crying and chattering… and then it is painfully
still without the children. The setting of the events is realistic and it
provides a background for further action.
The story is dedicated to the difficulty,
importance and joy of being a parent. The plot includes shot exposition, which
describes solitary life of Mamzelle Aurlie; development of events (the
neighbours request to watch the children for some time and Mamzelle's attempts
to become good at it). Climax, to my mind, is ommited (the moment when the
mother takes her kids back), and the storytelling continues with the
anticlimax, describing Aurlie's frustration and pain at the realization that
her life could be different with her own children, whom noone would ever take
away from her. To my mind, the message is that being a parent is one of the
greatest thing in life, and we should think how each of our decisions will
affect us in future.
From the point of view of the presentation this is
3rd person narrative, thought we can notice that the storyteller is not
detached and is sympathetics to the main character. The story is mainly
presented as the narration with some elements of description and dialogues.
Speaking about the main character of the story, I
should say that Mamzelle Aurlie is described both directly and indirectly. The
narrator presents her as a lonely woman, who at the very beginning of the story
doesn't quite realize it. She never regrets not being married and it seems to
her like the company of dog and plantation workers is enough. But her plain
world is torn apart by sudden realization of losing a possibility to become a
mother. Even her appearance shows that she is a strong-willed, determined,
manlike person ("she wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old blue army
overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes top-boots"). Aurlie's speech
suggests that she is of European origin, either German or French, as she uses
some foreign words and a lot of colloquialisms.
In order to reveal the idea vividly and
convincingly the author resorts to the following devices:
Describing Aurlie’s life, Chopin uses zeugma: So
she was quite alone in the world, except for her dog Ponto, and the negroes who
lived in her cabins and worked her crops, and the fowls, a few cows, a couple
of mules, her gun (with which she shot chicken-hawks), and her religion.
Placing human beings, animals and inanimate objects in a row emphasizes how
lonely she is.
The word combination “a small band of very small
children” possesses an effect of gradation, emphasizing how tiny and helpless
seem the children, about to be separated from their mother. Another example of
gradation is “flutter that was almost agitation” , that describes Aurlie’s
feelings after children are taken away from her.
In the expression “They were the children of her
nearest neighbor, Odile, who was not such a near neighbor, after all.” Chopin
uses pun, playing on the word meaning. She suggests, that the neighbor lived
not far away, but was never a close person to her.
To describe the children’s first reaction to
Mamzelle Aurlie, the writer uses the epithet “irresolute steps” and another
epithet, based on metonymy “unwilling hand” (to my mind, it is based on
metonymy, because not only his hand was unwilling at the moment, but the boy
himself). The family then is described as “disconsolate” (also an epithet). On
the contrary, when the mother returns, the epithet “beaming face” describes her
emotions, and the epithet “sad disorder” shows how lonely it is again for
Mamzelle Aurlie.
Consequently the way Aurlie treats children
changes. The simile “little one's warm breath beating her cheek like the
fanning of a bird's wing” compares the baby to something tender, soft ans
fragile. The final implied similie “sobs that seemed to tear her very soul”
emphasize the character’s realization of loosing something that is very
important.
In order to describe the character’s lifestyle, the
author uses parallel construction: “Mamzelle Aurlie had never thought of
marrying. She had never been in love. At the age of twenty she had received a
proposal, which she had promptly declined, and at the age of fifty she had not
yet lived to regret it.”
Another parallel construction is used to describe
the duties, connected with the children: “What about the little white
nightgowns that had to be taken from the pillow-slip in which they were brought
over, and shaken by some strong hand till they snapped like ox-whips? What
about the tub of water which had to be brought and set in the middle of the
floor, in which the little tired, dusty, sun-browned feet had every one to be
washed sweet and clean? ” (here we can also see the example of anaphor which
contributes to the effect).
The author also uses antithesis in order to
emphasize children’s frustration and sadness “She surveyed with the same
calculating air Marclette mingling her silent tears with the audible grief and
rebellion of Ti Nomme.”
There are some cases of onomatopoeia in the text:
“shooed the chickens”, and “chattering”, that contribute to the auditory image.
In the mother’s colloquial speech we can find many
examples of graphon, which reflects her accent and perhaps also plain background:
"It's no question, Mamzelle Aurlie; you jus' got to keep those youngsters
fo' me tell I come back. Dieu sait, I wouldn' botha you with 'em if it was any
otha way to do! Make 'em mine you, Mamzelle Aurlie; don' spare 'em. Me, there,
I'm half crazy between the chil'ren, an' Lon not home, an' maybe not even to
fine po' maman alive encore!" Besides that, we can see French expressions
in her speech (Dieu sait, encore).
Besides that, Chopin violates the rule, making the
abstract noun “attention” plural (attentions), in such way emphasizing that
children need a lot of it.
The vocabulary, used by Kate Chopin, is mainly
colloquial, as she tries to represent conversational speech of the characters.
The usage of foregn words (sich, armoire, encore, dieu sait) contributed to the
same aim. There also are some poetic words, elevated, hight-flown vocabulary,
that helps to create beautiful images. Besides that, there are some attempts of
formal language usage, namely, scientific vocabulary: “critically studying
their botanical construction”, that refers to a child and therefore creates
some humorous effect and also emphasizes the child’s natural curiosity.
Summing up the analysis
of the given extract one should say that Kate Chopin brilliantly uses epithets,
puns, zeugmas, parallel constructions, gradation and graphon, which help to
reveal the main character’s nature and to bring home to the reader the main
idea of the text.
