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A review by atticmoth
At Fault by Kate Chopin
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This book is racist, or rather, it depicts racism; I’m not sure which to say because I’m not sure what Chopin’s goal was, writing this. Chopin was writing At Fault about a plantation in 1890, so as uncomfortable as this book was I think it’d be more uncomfortable to deal with the cognitive dissonance of sanitizing the era. It’s similar to the debate around Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained — yes, the story contains racism, but does that mean it’s racist? His movie was obviously condemning racism, though there’s still an argument to be made that it’s not his story to tell. Chopin’s book isn’t about racism per se; she’s just describing the time and place she lived in. And could a wealthy white woman who’s parents owned slaves be trusted to write about it thoughtfully? Her short fiction (see “Desirée’s Baby”) shows a delicate and respectful treatment of the subject; At Fault is perhaps too immature a work to tell. It’s uncomfortable and at times really shocking, but I believe there’s something to be learned from reading forgotten works such as this.
That being said, At Fault is definitely an immature work. It’s full of hard to read Acadian dialects, but with some inconsistency, for example: Grégoire speaks in a thick accent only some of the time. Are the plain English parts supposed to be him speaking French with his aunt? Cultural differences are a theme at the forefront of this book, but their divisions are not immediately clear to the modern reader. The book starts out as a simple divorce drama (which can never be simple when Catholics are involved) but evolves into something much weirder. I don’t want to spoil it, but this confirms in my mind that Kate Chopin is the godmother of the Southern Gothic. There’s none of the niceties of her The Awakening, it’s much more like Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood in its use of the uncanny. Florid prose as always, At Fault showed potential for a fruitful career, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend reading it in particular.
That being said, At Fault is definitely an immature work. It’s full of hard to read Acadian dialects, but with some inconsistency, for example: Grégoire speaks in a thick accent only some of the time. Are the plain English parts supposed to be him speaking French with his aunt? Cultural differences are a theme at the forefront of this book, but their divisions are not immediately clear to the modern reader. The book starts out as a simple divorce drama (which can never be simple when Catholics are involved) but evolves into something much weirder. I don’t want to spoil it, but this confirms in my mind that Kate Chopin is the godmother of the Southern Gothic. There’s none of the niceties of her The Awakening, it’s much more like Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood in its use of the uncanny. Florid prose as always, At Fault showed potential for a fruitful career, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend reading it in particular.