The theme of isolation in selected short fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty

"The Theme of Isolation in Selected Short Fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty" examines certain prototypical natures of isolation as recurrent and underlying themes in selected short fiction of Chopin, Porter, and Welty. Despite the differing backgrounds of the three Southern women writers, and despite the variety of issues they treat, the theme of isolation permeates most of their short fiction. I categorize and analyze their short stories by the nature and the treatment of the varieties of isolation. The analysis and comparison of their short stories from this particular perspective enables readers to link the three writers and to acknowledge their artistic talent and grasp of human psychology and situations.;The chapters are divided by classifying the nature of isolation in their selected fiction by certain situational categories such as "Passion and Isolation," "Family and Isolation," "Feminine Independence and Isolation," "Social Issues and Isolation," and "Isolation and Writing as Resistance." "Passion and Isolation" and "Family and Isolation" examine how the general illusion of togetherness in heterosexual relationships and in the family is deceiving and undermines the hope of escape from isolation in many of the works of short fiction of the three authors. "Feminine Independence and Isolation" discusses how isolation can be a positive, fostering factor as well as a negative, destructive element, especially when it comes to feminine independence. "Social Issues and Isolation" examines the relation between isolation and social issues in the selected short fiction of the three authors, discussing how they treat severity, such as poverty and racism, that hamper individuals' welfare and doom them to isolation. The final chapter on "Isolation and Writing as Resistance" sums up the previous discussion on isolation of various natures in the authors' fiction as it examines the way death is treated in them as a terminating and ultimate form of isolation and discusses how some female characters isolate themselves so as to enact resistance.