Local Color Essay

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Local Color In “At the ‘Cadian Ball,” Kate Chopin uses vivid imagery, or local color, to illustrate the setting in relation to the characters. Authors who use local color in their works bring a place, a time, and its people to vibrant life through the setting, climate, and religion of a particular region. Chopin focuses on the character’s dialects, the climate, and other unique aspects to bring the characters and rural Louisiana to life for the audience. A main issue that plagues the characters is the upstanding social hierarchy. The Creoles rule the region, followed by the Cajuns who work for them. Creoles, descendants of the French, do not associate romantically with the Cajuns, the exiles from Canada, because of the difference in class. Pushing social barriers, Alcée, although he is a Creole and married, pursues Calixta at the Acadian Ball. Cuban roots govern Calixta, and she has a unique charm that attracts both Alcée and Bobinôt. Although Alcée strives for her attention, he cannot entirely win her because of her race and her social class, and he realizes that they can only be a fling. Bobinôt wins her hand in the conclusion of the story due to his race and social class. Ranking in the rural Louisianan society greatly affects who correlates with whom. Chopin adapts the use of the regional dialect of Louisiana to make the story more realistic to the reader. The accents are evident within the context of the dialogue in “At The ‘Cadian Ball.” By using the regional dialect the reader can connect more with the lives of the characters and visualize the scene. A large amount of the dialogue that is used throughout the story mixes French and English together to create the regional dialect. The dialect represents the time period, the region, and the characters of the story. The characters have moved to Louisiana from French speaking areas, and that
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