"The Charm of Plantation Life": Intertextuality, Plantation Fiction, and the South in Kate Chopin's At Fault

Through modifications to the conventions of plantation fiction in At Fault , Kate Chopin presents a more complex and realistic depiction of the American south. Although Chopin updates the plantation setting to portray a modern south, characterized by industrial development and intersectional relationships, her reliance on conventional elements of plantation fiction, even to critique the genre and the version of the south it produces, creates ambivalent depictions of African Americans and replicates the racial inequality of the Old South.