Gender relations and social dynamics
The canon of Kate Chopin's work consists of stories addressing gender hierarchy, gender relations, and sexuality. Two of Chopin's short stories that particularly exemplify a feminist critique of existing social structures include "The Story of an Hour" and "The Storm." Chopin uses her medium to express political views on the changing roles of women in domestic partnerships; the changing nature of those partnerships; and the impact of gender on personal identity. This paper will outline the two short stories in detail, discussing the core issue of gender hierarchy. Moreover, the paper will explore Kate Chopin's implicit and explicit strategies for social change as they appear in the two short stories. In both "Story of an Hour," and "The Storm," Kate Chopin promotes an ideal of independence and self-empowerment without completely eschewing heterosexual love.
Gnosticism and Earlier Christian Texts
Early Christian polemicists such as Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian all attacked Gnosticism as ‘heresy' and until the 20th Century virtually nothing was known about it except in the distorted texts they had written. Their purpose was to construct the boundaries between what later became ‘orthodox' or ‘catholic' Christianity in opposition to Judaism, paganism and carious Christian ‘heresies'. Until the fourth and fifth centuries, however, when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire under "the guiding influence of the Christian emperors" like Constantine and Theodosius, Christian ‘orthodoxy' was still fluid and in dispute. Only because of the power of the Roman state did Christianity become a "monolithic unity" that had not existed before and redefined "manifold ancient religious practices into three mutually exclusive groups: Jews, Christians and pagans (King 22). Early Christian polemicists deliberately exaggerated the differences between these groups and minimized the similarities, although for the first three centuries of Christianity no commonly recognized hierarchy or Scriptural canon existed.