THE IDEA OF A “THRESHOLD” IN KATE CHOPIN’S “BEYOND THE BAYOU” AND “MA’AME PÉLAGIE”

Abstract

Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was born into an age when the rough frame of the so-called modernist lifestyle has already crystallised and took its infamous shape. She witnessed the rapid industrialisation and she saw how people underwent some difficulties in terms of social, financial, and health conditions. One of her aims in writing novels and short stories was her desire to picture people’s social and psychological wretchedness. This study will pursue the idea of a “threshold”, or crisis time, in Kate Chopin’s two short stories, “Beyond the Bayou” and “Ma’ame Pélagie”. The concept of a threshold can be seen in Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1895-1975) theory of the carnival, which he discusses in his study on Dostoevsky. Bakhtin’s term of threshold refers to a character’s being in-between two states or two choices. Bakhtin stresses the importance of being in-between as a stage that leads to a radical change in a character’s life. Chopin’s stories portray characters that are sundered from the rest of the world and driven to the absolute loneliness until the moment of their inner crisis. The characters’ lapsing into the crisis moments is intrinsically motivated by the urge to comprehend and comply with the change-charged reality – the threshold stage. The reality of the absolute flux and transformation, unity and coherence that awaits the characters in the future is opposed to the province of social deficiency and debilitating incapacity for progress in which the characters are almost suffocated. In Chopin’s short stories, thresholds inaugurate the renunciation of staunch beliefs and, thus, are the doors to new beginnings.