Three Important Female Voices of the Fin de Siècle American Literature

Abstract

The aim of this study is to emphasize the importance of three women writers in the fin de siècle American Literature, specifically Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Women writers in the 1890s made great use of the short story as a suitable form for the new feminist themes of the decade such as the assertion of female sexuality and fantasy, the development of a woman’s voice and the critique of male aestheticism. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were prolific and innovative short-story writers experimenting during the decade and beyond with both subject and technique. While Kate Chopin wrote about female sexuality and desire with a frankness rarely seen before, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Edith Wharton tried to renew the subject and structure of fiction in order to reflect the wider cultural dislocations of the fin de siècle. All three writers felt the constraints of what was considered acceptable by the magazine editors of the late nineteenth century and they tried to find ways and means to work with the restrictions while still remaining in control of their own art.

Received: 10 January 2022 / Accepted: 21 March 2022 / Published: 30 March 2022