Kate Chopin’in K sa ykülerinde Yeni Bir “Ben”in ve “Kimlik”in Do u u

It was a common belief of 19th century Victorian society that unrestrained sex was a danger to the social order, as it wassupposed to threaten the mental health and procreative capacity of human being. The sexual desires of women were increasinglyregarded as inappropriate and unnatural and were denied. In other words, sexual desires and passion hardly existed for most ofthe 19th century American literary heroines. In contrast to this general tendency, Kate Chopin (1851-1904) repeatedly deals withtabooing subject of women’s sexual urge and sensual experiences. Although Chopin matured in a traditional, southern, upperclasssociety, which greatly repressed women, her personal desire for autonomy emerged in conflicting emotions throughout herlife. She manifested these contradictions in her personal life and her writing. Throughout Chopin’s life, beginning with herchildhood in Saint Louis and progressing to her experience as a wife, a mother and finally a writer, she maintained an independentspirit; yet, she always struggled with the repression she felt as a Victorian female. This paradox shaped her literature as sheprogressed as an autonomous woman. Famous for her novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin has always been underestimated as anauthor of short stories many of which nearly excel her so-called “master piece”. Not only The Awakening reveals her closeexamination of female sexuality but also several of her short stories challenge cultural assumptions about the role of sex in awoman’s life: Kate Chopin’s protagonists commit adultery, renounce sex, or ever turn their affections towards another womanrespectively. In American Literature, because of their economy, Chopin’s short stories can be considered to be more successfulthan her novel as she uses fewer words to express the same theme. She was known as an author with strong views about woman,sex and marriage- views that were well in advance of her times and challenged the prejudices and sexism of her society. Love andpassion, marriage and independence, freedom and restraint-these are themes of her work distinctively realized in story after story.When Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening announces “I would give up the unessential; I would give y-my money, I would give mylife for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself” (Chopin, 2004; 80), she is addressing the crucial issues for many of Kate Chopin’swomen- the winning of a self, the keeping of it. So do the Chopin women differ from the women of sentimental fiction. In sum,through her stories, Kate Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing “the other”, t