“She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
My Writing Process:
- This essay was considerably less stressful than the others because I already had all the essays I needed for my Presentation Portfolio. Because the stress level was lower, writing the essay was really enjoyable.
- Once again, I chose a work I had already written on (The Awakening) because of the background information I already had. When Dr. Pennington went through all the different parts of Reader Response, I was immediately drawn to Jauss’ Reception Theory. I knew it would be interesting to write a paper explaining why The Awakening was received so poorly in the early 1900s but then revived in the 1960s, ultimately becoming an integral piece of the literary canon.
- Because my New Historical paper also focused on Kate Chopin, I already had a lot of background knowledge about public criticism of her work, which was helpful when starting my research for this essay. I used a few of the same sources in this essay as I did in the New Historical, but I also found some really great new sources, too.
- After researching, I put together an outline to organize my ideas, deciding to have an entire paragraph dedicated to Jauss and his theory followed by three paragraphs of applying the theory to the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries’ reactions to The Awakening.
- I then constructed my first draft and turned it in, feeling very happy with the product. Dr. Pennington thought it was a strong draft but that I needed to contextualize a lot of my statements and also add more direct quotes from negative reviews of The Awakening.
- Even though I really liked this essay and enjoyed writing it, I decided to retire it in favor of revising my New Historical essay once more to make it portfolio ready.
