“Desperate+Wives”——Married+Women+in+Kate+Chopin’s+Fictions.pdf

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have helped me during the writing of this thesis. My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my respected supervisor, Professor Wang Labao, for his constant encouragement and guidance. He has offered me valuable suggestions on my academic studies and walked me through all stages of the writing of this thesis. He provided me with materials and spared his valuable time to discuss this thesis with me. His serious attitude to academic study and his hard-working spirit have set us a good example. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to other professors in the School of Foreign Languages, from whose devoted teaching and enlightening lectures I have benefited a lot. My sincere thanks go to Professor Zhu Xinfu, Professor Song Yanfang, and Professor Fang Hong. Their wonderful lectures on literature have helped me in more ways than one during my study. In addition, I deeply appreciate the contribution to this thesis made in various ways by my friends and classmates, and I appreciate their help during the three year‟s life and study. Finally, I feel deeply grateful to my family, especially my grandparents, who have been supporting me all these years. Yang L. M. i ABSTRACT Kate Chopin ( 1851-1904) is one of the most important women writers in 19th century American literature. In her lifetime, she created two novels and three short story collections, in which she portrayed women and reflected on the issue of women. Her novel The Awakening is viewed as the “best femin