Interpretations of Nature and Gender in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland

Examination Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature grade: 20 University of Trier language: English abstract: The work analyzes the way Gilman and Chopin respectively deal with nature and gender in Herland and The Awakening as these subject matters are central to both works and the issue of gender seems to superficially affiliate the works as both feminist works. The focuses are firstly on how they depict the different genders and portray their respective natures and secondly on what kind of relationship each of them devises between humans and nature that is the role they assign to nature in its different manifestations-its physical appearance and natural processes as well as human's inner nature-in each work. Moreover the thesis points out contrasts between the respective depictions and provides explanations for these by drawing on personal convictions of Chopin and Gilman as these are the key to achieving a full understanding of each of the works and of the respective underlying motivations. Thus some of the authors' differences in conviction are clarified thereby distinguishing them from each other. The first section provides important background information concerning prevalent convictions about the nature of the different genders in Chopin's and Gilman's time as well as where those convictions originated in and how they affected men's and women's respective roles in American society then. To be familiar with this historical and cultural background is essential for a proper understanding of both works as it constitutes the background on which both authors drew for Herland and The Awakening and to which both works can be understood as a reaction albeit in different ways. In two subsequent sections an analysis of each of the works with regard to the conception of nature and gender follows and the final section deals with the said contrasts.