Contemporary revaluation of southern local color fiction

Abstract

The objective of this study is to offer an examination of the works of Kate Chopin and Grace King, representatives of the genre of Louisiana "Local Color" fiction, and to introduce a new perspective on their fiction that is equally distanced from the national/local dichotomy and the feminist interpretative framework. This study interrogates selected aspects of the category of race in the fiction of Kate Chopin and Grace King in order to reclaim the importance of race for regional Aesthetics and to offer an alternative view on the existing interpretations that emphasize the feminist themes of their fiction and, ultimately, to expand such interpretations. A replacement of the existing theoretical frameworks applied to the works of these two authors by postcolonial theory offers a new perspective on the category of race in their fiction without reducing its complexity and interconnection with the category of gender and region. As a result, the insight into the formation of region-specific racial knowledge testifies to the complexity of the issue of race within the framework of Local Color fiction. The focal point of this examination is the representation of racial stereotypes in the fiction of Chopin and King.

Tato dizertacni pnice si klade za cH prehodnotit dHo Kate Chopin a Grace King, dvou nejvyraznejsich predstavitelek fikce takzvaneho mistniho koloritu (local color) americke Louisiany piSicich ve druhe polovine devatemicteho stoleti a na prelomu devatemicteho a dvaciiteho stoleti a aplikovat nove kriticke nahledy na jejich dilo, ktere se castecne odchyluji jak od soucasnych feministickych reinterpretaci jejich del, tak od jejich soudobych interpretaci, ktere zdurazfiuji rozpor mezi narodni a regionalni perspektivou. Jak tato prace v peti kapitolach dotvrzuje, postkolonialni literami teorie nabizeji altemativni nahled na kategorii rasy, ktera je jednim ze zasadnich temat zanru mistniho koloritu. Kategorie rasy, ktera je v ramci modemich interpretaci tohoto zanru casto zjednodusovana Ci do urCite miry ignorovana, je v teto praci posuzovana v ramci kontextu daneho regionu za vyuziti pristupu postkoloniaInich literamich teorii, jez jsou zachyceny predevsim v dilech nasledujicich autorU a autorek: Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks), Homi K. Bhabha (Location of Culture), Gloria Anzaldua (Borderlands/ La Frontera. The New Mestiza), Edward Said (Orientalism), Patricia Yaeger (Dirt and Desire) a Ania Loomba (Colonialism/Postcolonialism). V dusledku tato prace zkouma zobrazovani rasovych stereotypu, predevsim...