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

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.