Коломийцева Ю. 1 англ. маг.

Kate Chopin “The Kiss”

The text under consideration is “The Kiss” by a well-known American

author of short stories and novels Kate Chopin. She is considered to be a
forerunner of American 20th century feminist authors of Southern background. She
dared to write her thoughts on topics considered radical: the institution of marriage
and women’s desire for social, economic and political equality. With a focus on
the reality of relationship between men and women, she draws stunning and
intelligent characters in a rich bold writing style that was not accepted because it
was so far ahead of its time. She is best known for her novel “The Awakening” and
short stories “The story of an Hour” and “The Storm”.

“The Kiss” is a short story about a girl Natalie. The story describes the
situation of love triangle. Two men, Harvy and Braintain, are interested in Natalie.
The girl love Harvy, but choses wealth which could be given by Braintain. At the
end of the story, she manages to marry Braintain, but still wants to save her
relations with Harvy. But, the last teaches her a lesson and repeals her advances.

The short story belongs to the emotive prose and as such represents the
belles-lettres functional style, the main aim of which is to give reader aesthetic
pleasure, to make them think and to entertain by appealing to their emotions. It is
worth mentioning that this story is a psychological one. It shows the drama of
Natalie’s inner world.

One of the peculiarities of the analyzed text is that it starts with the
implication of precedence. The personal pronoun he, the proper noun Braintain
and the definite article the combined with the noun girl can be suggestive of it.
Such beginning is aimed to excite the readers’ interest, to urge them to read on.
The next component of the structure is complication. The following abstract
presents it: “A stride or two brought him to her side, and bending over her chair--
before she could suspect his intention, for she did not realize that he had not seen
her visitor--he pressed an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips.”. In this line we can
observe a conflict of the story and between the main characters. The epithets ardent
and lingering show that relations between Natalie and Harvy are not as friendly as
they pretended to act. Then, there occurs the development of actions which leads
to the climax of the story. The following abstract is considered as the culmination:
“She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the
game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as
they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they
invited.” So, in the given abstract we can observe the highest point of Natalie’s
emotions, her intentions to have a wealthy husband and a passionate lover. The
author implies various stylistic devices to describe her excited state. For example,
she uses simile “she felt like a chess player” which shows the girl’s desire to
control the situation and two men. To double this effect, the writer adds the
detachment “by the clever handling of his pieces”. Moreover, such epithets as
bright and tender are used. And the synecdoche “her lips looked hungry for the
kiss”. All these SDs show the girl’s desire to belong to another man. Then, there
appears the denouement of the story which is presented by the SD of anticlimax:
“But, you know," he went on quietly, "I didn't tell him so, it would have seemed
ungrateful, but I can tell you. I've stopped kissing women; it's dangerous.” Harvy’s
action broke Natalie’s expectations. He made her come down to earth. As the
denouement is present we can conclude that the analyzed short story has a closed
plot structure.

In the given short-story we can observe three temporal planes. The

simultaneous plane, which is predominant in this text, is represented both by
lexical and grammatical markers. The grammatical markers are the use of the
Present Simple (I believe, I see, you don’t know), the Present Perfect (have
stayed), the Past Simple (she was, he came, the door opened), Past Continuous (she
was waiting). The indirect lexical markers are the other day and indirect lexical
markers it was quite light out of doors, always, the last tea. The retrospective
temporal plane is also presented by lexical and grammatical markers. The
grammatical markers are the use of the Past Perfect (he had sought). The direct
lexical marker of the retrospective temporal plane for two weeks past. The
prospective temporal plane is also presented with the help of lexical and
grammatical markers. The grammatical markers are the usage of modals (wealth
could give her). The lexical markers are (she meant to accept him, whether I ever
forgive you).

In the given short story, we deal with the closed space. The actions
described take place in the Natalie’s house. The suggestion of it is the usage of
direct lexical marker of closed space the curtains, over her chair, the door, house,
upstairs, retired corner, dim corridor.

In the analyzed story there are three main characters Natalie, Braintain,
Harvy.

Nathalie is a female protagonist of the short story. The writer uses narrative
compositional form portrait to describe her appearance ‘very handsome, with a
certain fine, rich coloring that belongs to the healthy brune type.’ She acts as a
woman who has already realized her potential and ability to satisfy her desires and
who now tries to adjust the actions of those around her in order to suit her wishes.
Nathalie here is portrayed as having a calculating, imperious nature. When Harvy
ironically fails to become one of her pawns, she shows her practical side and
acknowledges her defeat, not only without rancor but even with an almost amused,
philosophic resignation. Her attitude to both men differs vastly, that is expressed in
her speech. When talking to Harvy she is quite strict and angry. This justifies the
usage of numerous cases of exclamation marks and imperative sentences. "Don't
touch me; don't come near me," she returned angrily. But while speaking to
Brantain Nathalie behaves respectfully. She uses different tricks to persuade him to
marry her. She is quite a good actress. Her speech is vivid with examples of
aposiopesis but-but oh. She is on the verge of crying.

Harvy is one of the male protagonist. The author describes him as an

insolent man which truly shows his inner world. His intentions towards Natalie are
not serious, he is interested on in physical relations. He tries to show his
ascendancy over her. From his words, we can make a conclusion that he kisses her
regularly. He addresses her Nattie as though they are couple. This fact justifies that
their relations were rather intimate.

Braintain is a shy, honest, young man who is in love with Natalie and who
has serious intentions towards her. His image is created by various details. In the
very beginning Chopin writes about him: “The obscurity lent him courage to keep
his eves fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the firelight.” The
man was too shy even to look at his beloved girl. The author implies such epithets
to describe his character frank, blustering fellow. Moreover, the word frank is
repeated twice within the text which means that the character really kind and good-
natured. In contrast to his inner world, his appearance is not so outstanding such
epithets with morphemic repletion are used insignificant, unattractive. It is worth
mentioning Braintain’s behavior after Harvy’s kiss. There are a lot of details which
depict his inner world. For example, “Brantain slowly arose; so did the girl arise,
but quickly”. Due to the adverb slowly, the author shows his inability to manage
the situation. Moreover, here the SD of antithesis is used to show different
reactions of protagonists. Also, the onomatopoeic word stammered, the fact of
clutching his hat, aposiopesis “I-I had no idea” show his miserable condition. In
fact, the very word miserable is used four times to describe his character.

One of the peculiarities of the analyzed text is the usage of author’s narrative
proper, which means that the narration is carried out from the 3rd person singular,
from the omniscient anonymous narrator. Dialogue as a type of narration is also
present in the text. It imitates the colloquial speech and helps to characterize the
characters. The represented inner speech is also present in the text “Well, she had
Braintain and his million left.” It is the mix of author’s and Natalie’s thoughts.

As for the narrative compositional forms narrative proper, portrait and

argumentation are used in the text. Narrative proper presents the unfolding of the
text. As for the argumentation, we can observe it in the following abstract “A
person can't have everything in this world; and it was a little unreasonable of her
to expect it.” The markers are indefinite article a person, words of generalizing
semantics such as everything, also the switch of grammar tense. Due to the
narrative compositional form portrait the reader gets to know about Natalie’s
appearance: “She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that
belongs to the healthy brune type. She was quite composed…”

As for the stylistic devices all levels are foregrounded. The phono-graphical level
is exploited by an example of onomatopoeia “stammered Braintain”. This case of
onomatopoeia shows an emotional state of one of the protagonists and helps to
characterize him.

Morphemic level is also foregrounded by the author. For example, “ Brantain

slowly arose; so did the girl arise, but quickly”; “rather insignificant and
unattractive Brantain”; “I have been very uncomfortable, almost miserable”. Due
to repetition od suffixes and prefixes the writer tries to grab reader’s attention.

On the lexical level there is abundance of epithets such as uncertain, deep,

smouldering, indifferent, frank, blustering, insignificant, unattractive. There are a
few examples of SD of metaphor (personification) such as ( the obscurity lent
him courage, the ray of hope mingles with almost comical misery, hope was
plainly gaining the ascendancy, the misery had disappeared.) Also, there is an
example of synecdoche her lips looked hungry for the kiss. Also, we observe the
hyperbole extremely unhappy. All these SDs play an important role in
characterization of protagonists.

The SDs on the syntactical level are the most frequent. We can observe parallel
constructions: “Don’t touch me; don’t come near me.” The SD devices such as
detachment and attachment are numerous. The following examples are
detachments: “by the clever handling of his pieces”; “like brother and sister”,
“hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Brantain's round,
guileless face” The following examples are attachments: “like brother and sister, I
may say.”, "I didn't tell him so, it would have seemed ungrateful, but I can tell you
“Also, there are several examples of inversions: “For two weeks past he had
sought her society eagerly and persistently.”, “During one of the pauses between
their talk of the last tea and the next reception the door opened and a young man
entered whom Brantain knew quite well.”, “At that next reception which she and
Brantain had been talking about she approached the young man with a delicious
frankness of manner when she saw him there.”.

While speaking about the vocabulary, we distinguish between literary, neutral

and colloquial vocabulary. The examples of literary words are obscurity,
misadventure, ascendancy, friend of long standing, encounter, perturbed, entitled,
fancies. The examples of colloquial are deuced, Nattie, What’s the matter? The
thematic vocabulary of the short story is relations, man, girl, kiss, wedding. As for
the key words they are kiss, wealth, hope, love. These words reveal the author’s
message. The author depicts the situation of love triangle and describes possible
kinds of relations. Kate Chopin portrays passionate love with unpredictable
consequences which is presented by Harvy. Also, she shows stable relations, but,
unfortunately, love in this case isn’t mutual. Nevertheless, the author gives her
female character choice, but she insists on that fact that it is necessary to be
devoted to your own choice, to be devoted to yourself.